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Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation
of Canada
Montreal Chapter
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
Managing Editor
Toronto Globe & Mail
October 16, 2002
Dear Sir or Madam,
On behalf of the Polish-Jewish Heritage Foundation in
Montreal, we would like to express our deep concern
over the reference to the "Polish concentration
camp" in the article 'The return of the Auschwitz
nightmare' in Toronto Globe & Mail, published on
20 September 2002 - and only recently reported to us.
Auschwitz was in fact a Nazi death camp established
and operated by the German Nazis in the then-occupied
Polish town of Oswiecim. And so were other death camps
on the Polish land occupied by Germany. The reference
to Auschwitz or any other of those camps as a Polish
concentration camp will inevitably lead your readers
to erroneously conclude that a death camp was sponsored
or administered by the Polish government (whereas no
Polish government existed during the German occupation
!) or that Polish people participated in perpetrating
the Holocaust. Any such implication besmirches the memory
of all those Poles who suffered so greatly under the
German occupation, including the many thousands who
died at the hands of the Germans in Auschwitz.
Incidentally, the present president of our Board - as
a young Pole at the age of nineteen - spent ten months
in Pawiak, a German prison in Warsaw.
For almost fifteen years our Foundation has been working
to bring together members of the Polish and Jewish communities
in Montreal to discuss issues of common concern, to
promote a peaceful dialogue aiming at a better knowledge
of our common heritage and mutual understanding. Through
conferences, invited speakers and more recently by means
of our Web site www.polish-jewish-heritage.org and by
memoirs of the Holocaust survivors that our Foundation
has published and will continue to publish, we have
facilitated dialogue on challenging issues, on anti-Semitic
and anti-Polish sentiments, and the unprecedented Jedwabne
debate.
Please rest assured that we stand ready to cooperate
with you in any possible way to rectify this misperception,
including meeting with the Toronto Globe & Mail's
editorial board. We trust that you share our concern
for historical accuracy and we thank you in advance
for your consideration.
Respectfully,
Irena Bellert Ilona Gruda, Krzysztof Dzieciolowski
Andrea Axt
President Vice-presidents Board
member
Reply: October
16, 2002
Dear Mrs. Bellert:
Thank you for your letter
pointing out the error in our description of Nazi concentration
camps during the Second World War. You were not the
only one to bring it to our attention. We published
a correction on Sept. 24. I have reproduced it below.
Yours truly
Earle Gill
Director, Editorial Administration
The Globe and Mail
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Correction
Concentration camps in Poland
during the Second World War
were not Polish camps, but
Nazi-run camps in occupied Poland.
Incorrect information appeared
Sept. 21.
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