"Polish death camps"
mercredi 31 janvier 2018 à 01:00The Nazi extermination camps in Poland were set up and controlled by Germans, not by Poles. Thus, the term "Polish death camps" is indeed somewhat misleading.
According to the Polish emissary's report, published as Story of a Secret State by Jan Karsky, not many Poles collaborated actively with the Nazis. It was severely punished by the underground Polish state.
Nonetheless, antisemitism was traditional and widespread in Poland. Many Poles didn't particularly mind that Jews were forced into ghettos and then systematically killed.
The book describes, among many other things, how Karsky snuck into an extermination camp by mingling with the guards, and what he saw there.
Once in the US, he reported it to US officials, but they refused to believe it. After the war, they found out it was true.
Although the term "Polish death camps" is misleading (so I wouldn't use it myself), to prohibit the term by law is censorship, an injustice. This law should be rejected.
Antisemitism is a very bad thing, and at its worst is as horrible as anything humans have done. Please do not conflate it with condemnation of Israel's occupation of Palestine.