Poland criticizes Obama’s ‘Polish death camp’ remark
McClatchy Newspapers
WARSAW, Poland
President Barack Obama drew criticism from Poland on Wednesday after he mistakenly referred to a Nazi death camp as a “Polish death camp” during an award ceremony at the White House.
Obama made the comment Tuesday in Washington while awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to former Polish resistance fighter Jan Karski, who infiltrated a Nazi death camp and later warned Western officials of the Jews’ plight.
Obama’s words caused an uproar in Poland, which suffered under the Nazi occupation, where Poles were killed alongside Jews and others.
“We cannot accept words of this type, even if they are spoken by the leader of an allied power,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk said.
Tusk said he was “convinced” the U.S. was capable of a “stronger reaction” than the clarification issued thus far from a White House spokesman. The White House has said that Obama “misspoke.”
Later Wednesday, White House spokesman Jay Carney reiterated regret for the comment and said it should not distract from the honor bestowed on Karski for his work during the Holocaust.
“The president misspoke,” Carney told reporters in Washington. “He was referring to Nazi death camps in German-occupied Poland.”
“As we’ve made clear, we regret the misstatement. And that simple misstatement should not at all detract from the clear intention to honor Mr. Karski and, beyond that, all those brave Polish citizens who stood on the side of human dignity in the face of tyranny.”
President Bronislaw Komorowski said he sent a letter to Obama and counted on “solving the unfortunate mistake together” but that there had been no ill-will in Obama’s remark.
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