Italian media uses term 'Polish death camp'

ANSA used the phrase in reference to Auschwitz, a WWII German Nazi concentration and death camp in occupied Poland, in a report on a Monday screening of an Italian documentary.

The film shows the journey of a group of young people from their home town in Italy to the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

The ANSA news agency earlier used the term "Polish camp" in a 16 January report on the same film.

Ten days later, ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day marking the liberation of Auschwitz on 27 January, the Polish embassy appealed to Italian media to use the UNESCO-approved term “German Nazi concentration and extermination camp”.

Nevertheless, on 27 January, the Italian Canale 5 television network used the phrase “Polish death camp”.

However, the Polish embassy’s intervention led to a correction being aired on the network's Tg5 news programme.

Similarly, after Italian state broadcaster RAI used the term “Polish camp” an interview with the Polish ambassador Tomasz Orłowski was aired. In the interview, Orłowski said that for Poles, calling the camps Polish because they were in Poland is unacceptable.

A correction was also published in the Italian Corriere della Sera daily after the Polish embassy intervened on the paper’s use of the term “Polish death camp” in relation to the Sobibór extermination camp. (vb)

Source: PAP