From H.E. Zbigniew Matuszewski
the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in London

The Guardian, 28 January 2005

Sir, thank you for publishing my letter (Poland's people have nothing to hide, January 27), which was a reaction to the opinions concerning Poland, expressed in Ian Black's article (World Watch, January 24). However, I must express my opinion on yet another, even more striking matter. In one of the leading articles, (Eternal memory, January 26) you wrote that during the World War Two, the French Jews were rounded up and shipped into cattle trucks to the Polish gas chambers and crematoria'.

It makes me feel embarrassed to have to explain to the newspaper of such a reputation as yours, that the gas chambers and crematoria were not Polish, but were designed, built and used by the Nazis occupiers in the enslaved Poland.

In the same commentary, you admit that `there is still alarming ignorance' about Holocaust. I cannot help but agree in the light of the formulation you have chosen.

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BBC News Scotland, 28 January 2005
From Aleksander Kropiwnicki
Press Counselor of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in London

Dear Sirs,

I strongly object to your statement that Auschwitz was the Polish death camp (`McConnell's `never forget' plea', January 27). The Nazis built a number of death camps in occupied Poland during the World War II. But they were the Nazi death camps, not the Polish ones. I expect the correction to be made as soon as possible.

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The Guardian, 27 January 2005
From H.E. Zbigniew Matuszewski
the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in London

Sir,

Although I read his column with interest, I can see no grounds for
Ian Black saying that hosting today's ceremony in Auschwitz on Thursday, January 27 "is not a role they (the Poles) relish" (World watch, January 24). In fact, Poland would like as many people as
possible to visit the former Auschwitz death camp and understand the evil of Nazism.

Ian Black mentions his participation in the study tour to the small farms in Poland. With regard to the impromptu visit to the former death camp Treblinka he observes that it "wasn't quite what our hosts, aware of Poland's own anti-Semitism and pogroms, had in mind to display to opinion-formers from the European mainstream they were desperate to rejoin". Let me point out that, as a victim of the German aggression occupation, Poland lost 6m citizens - half Jewish - and has nothing to hide about the Holocaust.

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The Independent on Sunday, 23 January 2005
From H.E. Zbigniew Matuszewski
the Ambassador of the Republic of Poland in London

Sir,

According to Francis Elliott the Tory leader Michael Howard's grandmother died "in a Polish death camp" (`Out of touch, out of control: how Harry's joke backfired on loyalty', January 16). The Nazis built a number of death camps in occupied Poland during the World War II, the most traumatic experience in our history. But they were the Nazi death camps, not the Polish ones. I find the expression used by Francis Elliott misleading, to say the least. I strongly object to this expression and expect the correction to be made as soon as possible.

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On 30 January 2004 the Press Counselor of the Polish Embassy in London wrote a letter to the Editor of The Times expressing his
disappointment after reading that Auschwitz was "the Polish concentration camp" (The Eye, 24-30 January 2004, p. 45). Poland was strongly against the Holocaust and never co-operated with the Nazi criminals, unlike the governments of some other European states. Many Poles whose relatives died in Auschwitz can feel offended reading that it was "the Polish concentration camp".

The Counselor expressed also his protest against describing the picture of the Nazi-established Jewish ghetto as "The Warsaw Ghetto in the 1930s" (T2, 26 January 2004). There was no Jewish ghetto in Poland before the German invasion that happened at the very end of the 1930s. The mistake seems to be small but it leaves a false impression that the Jewish ghettos were established before the

Second World War by the Polish authorities.