28.01.2013: Dziennik Polski, Listy do redakcji – Holocaust Victim Interview – “Today” (Radio 4)
Holocaust Victim Interview
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am sure many Poles in Britain were touched by the moving interview with Henia Bryer, broadcast on Friday morning’s today programme. It is a touching testament to the survivors of concentration camps, and surely even more so to the victims.
It was therefore most unfortunate that Mr John Humphreys should have used the words “Polish Camps” at the beginning of the interview. A number of members of the Federation of Poles in Great Britain have commented to us on this. The Federation is well aware that these words are all too often used as a shortcut for “Nazi Camps in German-occupied Poland” and that it is generally assumed that listeners know that this is intended.
Unfortunately, as the interviewee herself said in the programme, even intelligent and well-educated people now know nothing of the history. In hearing “Polish Camps” they assume the camps were constructed and run by Poles, with Polish Jews and many others as the victims. When a popular broadcaster of Mr Humphreys’ stature uses such words, this misconception is only likely to be strengthened.
May I therefore appeal to you to ensure that this unfortunate mistake is not repeated when the related programme is broadcast on BBC TV this Sunday, Holocaust Memorial Day.
Włodzimierz Mier-Jędrzejowicz, PhD,
Chairman
Federation of Poles in Great Britain
“Today” (Radio 4)
Dear Sirs
At approximately 8.10 am this morning on the Today programme on Radio 4, during a piece about the Holocaust, the presenter called the Nazi concentration camps “Polish camps”. The above phrase is historically inaccurate and hugely offensive to Poles, because it suggests Polish involvement in establishing and the running of these death camps during the war. I believe that you wouldn’t dispute historical facts that Nazi authorities of Germany, which occupied Poland at the time, established concentration camps on the Polish territory and they were operated by the Nazi German government, with no co-operation from Polish authorities or the local population. I’d like to add that the phrase Polish death camp is fallacious also on account of the formal decision by The World Heritage Committee of UNESCO on the 27 June 2007, which changed the name of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps to the Auschwitz-Birkenau German Nazi concentration and extermination camp 1940-1945.
Unfortunately, we see that notable British media sources use the incorrect term Polish concentration camps or Polish death camps time and time again. The subsequent consequences of such inaccuracies are multiple and we wish to emphasise that such insinuations are false, especially on account of the fact that Poland was, above all, a victim throughout World War II.
I have to add that we observe that the BBC keeps repeating the above mistake on many different occasions. I’d like to let you know that you could find a booklet by Mr. Jan Niechwiadowicz, in which he gathered and analysed the BBC’s mistakes regarding death camps: http://germancampspolishvictims.info/home
I’m writing this email to ask you to avoid the usage of the above phrase in the future. I would also like to ask you to correct the phrase and ensure that any material online doesn’t carry the same wording. Please also consider informing your listeners on air at the same time as the original broadcast took place that you used an incorrect phrase describing the Nazi concentration camp.
I look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.
Robert Szaniawski
Press Counsellor
Embassy of The Republic of Poland
January 31st, 2013 at 19:33
I emailed 8 people connected with the programme (text below), but none of them has shown me the courtesy of even an acknowledgment – let alone a reply: ceri thomas, peter hanington, simon hamer, john humphrys, helen boaden, gwyneth williams, tim davie, ania lichtarowicz
A survey conducted in 2005 by the BBC found that 45% of the adult population of the UK had never heard of Auschwitz and another survey in 2009 by Erskine a Scottish-based charity) concluded, amongst others, that 1 in 6 youngsters n the UK thought Auschwitz was a theme park.
As professional broadcasters you will know that, given the profound ignorance of such matters among your audience, fictions masquerading as facts can gain easy acceptance. It is therefore astonishing to find that nonetheless the BBC continues to disseminate disinformation on this subject
[#], disinformation that contributes to forming opinions that are denigrating to Poles.
From a personal standpoint I find the phrase ‘Polish camps’ particularly insulting because two of my family were imprisoned and murdered in German camps, the one in Majdanek and the other in Dachau. You know very well that
there is no justification whatsoever for describing such places as ‘Polish’.
At this time of Holocaust remembrance, Auschwitz-Birkenau is most often mentioned. There is no way that this can be denoted as a ‘Polish camp’.
[a] Its function as a concentration/extermination camp was set up and managed by Germans. Its location was in Germany – on territory that Germany had occupied and incorporated directly into the Reich.
[b] Do you describe Guantanamo as a Cuban prison? Do you describe the nuclear weapon used at Hiroshima as Japanese? Of course not – geographic location is irrelevant and the origin is what matters.
Auschwitz-Birkenau and all similar places were ‘German camps’ or, if you prefer, ‘German Nazi camps’. Of course it is not acceptable to describe them simply as ‘Nazi camps’ because there were non-German Nazi emulators in Europe who did not set up such camps.
I understand that you have declined to offer the correction requested by the Polish Embassy on the basis that your listeners understand what is being discussed, yet your own organisation’s research (quoted above) contradicts this assertion.
Not only do you need to broadcast on the Today programme a correction to the disinformation you have communicated, but also an apology to Poles such as myself whose relatives were murdered in the camps. I suggest this is not optional, but a basis on which the moral and professional integrity of the BBC can be assessed.
The point was well made by the French poet Charles Péguy, “He who does not proclaim the truth when he knows the truth, makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers”.
Yours faithfully,
Victor M Woldanowski
Administrator – Anti-Polish Monitoring Group
[#] I use the word ‘continues’ in the light of the analysis set out in the groundbreaking publication “The BBC coverage of German occupied Poland” available at http://www.germancampspolishvictims.info/booklet to which I
contributed. I would prefer to avoid the need for letters/emails/complaints against the BBC on this topic and trust that you share this objective, so reflecting on the conclusions of this report may assist you to make this
happen.
January 31st, 2013 at 19:40
BBC tend to cross the line and use “Polish concentration camp” all to often. Mr John Humphreys should be fired as he cannot say in this day and age that he was not aware of this insult. BBC might stop this on going behavior should there be hefty fines placed per time. Shame on them for this on going slander.