German Official Skewered For Trying To Change History

The Polish government has taken issue with a social media post made by EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, in which Auschwitz was falsely implied to be a Polish Nazi death camp.

It was then clarified that the tweet published on X was unclear and that Auschwitz, although in Poland, was a concentration camp owned, occupied, and functioned on behalf of Nazi Germany.

In the original post, EU commissioners paid tribute on the International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which shared the names and places of birth and death of Holocaust victims. The initial text identifying the concentration camp Auschwitz read “Poland.” This infuriated the Polish people and government.

On Saturday, commemorating the 79th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkeanu by Soviet soldiers on January 17, 1945, a ceremony was conducted at the memorial and museum site by Holocaust survivors and governmental authorities. The day is set aside to honor those who perished in the Holocaust. World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Germany attacked neighboring Poland. Starting in 1940, the Nazis executed Polish resistance fighters at a concentration camp that had been housed in abandoned Austrian military barracks in Oswiecim. In 1942, the adjacent Birkenau section was designated as a mass extermination center, primarily for Jewish people, and it included gas chambers and crematoria. By the time it was liberated, Auschwitz-Birkenau had murdered almost 1.1 million people, the vast majority of whom were Jewish. Approximately 6 million Poles, including half of its Jewish population, perished under the cruel German rule.

Falsely attributing atrocities committed on Polish territory by Nazi Germany to Poles is punishable by law in Poland.

Noting that the Auschwitz camp was a concentration camp founded by the Nazis in the territories seized by Germany in 1939, Polish parliament speaker Szymon Holownia expressed his approval of the modification.