{"id":59442,"date":"2018-02-06T17:05:49","date_gmt":"2018-02-06T15:05:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=59442"},"modified":"2018-02-06T09:36:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-06T07:36:04","slug":"14-05-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=59442","title":{"rendered":"How many Polish PR specialists does it take to defuse outrage"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>How many Polish PR specialists does it take
\nto defuse outrage over a Holocaust law?<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

MICHA\u0141 BRONIATOWSKI<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Shocked by the reaction from Israel and the US, Warsaw seeks to set the record straight.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki delivers a speech during the main ceremony marking the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp | Stanislaw Rozpedzik\/EPA<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

WARSAW<\/strong> \u2014 Poland\u2019s public relations counteroffensive against criticism of its new Holocaust law is becoming a bit of a PR joke.<\/span><\/p>\n

Keen to restore calm after a wave of attacks on a controversial law that makes it a criminal offense to tie Poland to the wartime crimes of Nazi Germany, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki last week delivered a solemn prime-time speech in which he stressed that Poland does indeed respect the memory of those who died in the Holocaust.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alas, when the speech was uploaded to YouTube and translated into English, the following appeared onscreen: \u201cCamps where millions of Jews were murdered were Polish.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The law makes it a crime to say concentration camps were Polish, not German.<\/span><\/p>\n

The government had to issue a correction that there was a missing word \u2014 \u201cnot\u201d \u2014 in that sentence in the PM\u2019s speech.<\/span><\/p>\n

But then when Morawiecki recorded an English version of the address, with the \u201cnot\u201d now included, he said that Germans were responsible for all World War II crimes, including the murder of thousands of Polish officers at the Katy\u0144. This atrocity, in fact, was committed by the Soviet Union, though Poland\u2019s communist-era government did blame the Germans for it.<\/span><\/p>\n

By week\u2019s end, the prime minister\u2019s office organized a press tour for foreign correspondents that was intended to show how difficult and risky it was for Poles to save Jews during the war (POLITICO wasn\u2019t invited). The reporters were taken to the southeastern village of Markowa, where he showed them a new museum devoted to a Polish family who were executed \u2014 adults and children alike \u2014 for sheltering Jews.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the reporters found out that the family was shopped to the Gestapo by their Polish neighbor and the firing squad included Polish officers \u2014 exactly the kind of events that the new Polish law would forbid speaking about.<\/span><\/p>\n

The journalists were fed omelette with Kie\u0142basa, a Polish sausage made with pork (a curious choice on a trip the purpose of which was to make clear that the government has nothing against Jews). There were some Jewish reporters on the trip.<\/span><\/p>\n

The purpose of the legislation, which was adopted by the Polish Senate early Thursday morning, is to counter accusations of Polish anti-Semitism during the war, which the government sees as an unfair slur.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the international furor over the law, including by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has ended up projecting a different impression.<\/span><\/p>\n

Beata Mazurek, spokesperson of the ruling Law and Justice party, retweeted a comment about the Israeli ambassador\u2019s critical reaction to the law, saying that: \u201cWhat the Israeli ambassador did makes it difficult for me to look at Jews with kindness and sympathy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\u00a0\u00a0 Beata Mazurek<\/strong>\u200f\u00a0<\/span><\/span>@beatamk<\/b><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n
\n