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Polish Foreign Min. rebukes Gross over Die Welt refugee article

PR dla Zagranicy
Jo Harper 14.09.2015 17:18
The Polish Foreign Ministry has expressed concern over an article by Polish-born American sociologist and historian Jan Tomasz Gross, published in the German Die Welt.
A photo from the book ‘Golden Harvest.' Photo: Wikimedia CommonsA photo from the book ‘Golden Harvest.' Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In the article, Gross wrote that during World War Two "Poles killed more Jews than Germans." Referring to the current migrant crisis, he wrote that "the hideous face of Poles is rooted in Nazi times."

Ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski described it as "historically untrue, harmful and insulting to Poland."

The spokesman said that the Polish Ambassador in Germany will address a letter of protest to the editors of Die Welt.

President of the Warsaw-based Batory Foundation, Aleksander Smolar, called the article "primitive....his words are disgusting and irresponsible," he said.

Gross wrote the book ‘Neighbours; the Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland,’ which after its publication in 2001 in Polish initiated the first public discussion in Poland about Poles' culpability in the murder of Jews during the Nazi occupation of Poland during WW2. He also wrote 'Fear' about the 1946 pogrom of Jews in the city of Kielce and ‘Golden Harvest' about Polish villagers digging for gold in the mass graves of Jewish Holocaust victims after WW2. (mk/jh/rk)

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