Institute of National Remembrance

Institute of National Remembrance https://ipn.gov.pl/en/news/724,The-website-wwwtruthaboutcampseu-now-in-Bulgarian.html 2021-10-03, 01:42 17.06.2014 The website www.truthaboutcamps.eu now in Bulgarian From today www.truthaboutcamps.eu is also available in Bulgarian at www.bg.truthaboutcamps.eu. The website was created in August 2012 in response to the multiplying cases of the term "Polish death camps" appearing in various foreign media. During the last two years the portal (available in English and Polish) had more than 185,000 hits worldwide. June 14, the anniversary of the arrival of the ﬁrst transport of prisoners to Auschwitz in 1940, in Poland is celebrated as the National Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Nazi Concentration Camps.

The website features basic information about the extermination camps and concentration camps created by Nazi Germany in the occupied Poland during World War II. It explains the liability for the German camps based on historical facts. The Bulgarian language version was created through close cooperation between the Embassy in Soﬁa and the Institute of National Remembrance.

Many foreign newspapers, when informing about the German Nazi concentration camps of World War II, used the false and unfair shorthand "Polish camps." This concept could suggest that the German camps located in occupied Poland were created and administered by Poles. According to data of the Polish Ministry of Foreign Aﬀairs, only in 2012 the world media used the term up to 130 times.

Why is the website now available also in Bulgarian? Amazingly in Bulgaria the cases of using this deceitful and abusive term are particularly frequent. Last year, in connection with the celebration of the 70th anniversary of saving the Bulgarian Jews from deportation to death camps, Bulgarian media often mentioned the Holocaust, which caused the increased number of cases where the false phrase "Polish concentration camps" was used. Last year the Polish Embassy in Soﬁa intervened 20 times in this case. This year the Embassy intervened twice. Hence Leszek Hensel, the Polish Ambassador in Soﬁa proposed translating the website www.truthaboutcamps.eu into Bulgarian.

What term should be used? In accordance with the decision of UNESCO World Heritage Committee of June 27, 2007 concerning the Auschwitz- Birkenau camp, the oﬃcial name of the entry to the list of World Heritage is "Auschwitz-Birkenau. The German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)". The proposal of the name was jointly submitted by Poland and Israel.

Already in 2005, the American Jewish Congress described the use of the term "Polish concentration camps" as misleading and harmful, noting that during the World War II there were only "concentration camps established by the Nazis." In a similar vein, spoke the Jewish Anti-Defamation League, which also supported the Polish eﬀorts to change the name of the camp site in UNESCO.

The late Professor Israel Gutman of the Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, a participant of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the Prisoner of German concentration camps at Majdanek, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Mauthausen- Gusen, believed that the term "Polish concentration camps" is one of the forms of Holocaust denial. In his opinion it was a conscious or unconscious form of conversion of the victim into the executioner in an attempt to blur responsibility for the crimes committed. He frequently said that "Poles did not deserve it."

It is most peculiar that such errors occur also in the German media. A year ago the DPA agency used the term "Polish camps" when mentioning the death camp in Sobibor. Previously it appeared in "Die Welt", in relation to young Israelis traveling to the camp at Majdanek. In the summer last year the regional newspaper "Rheinische Post" also wrote about the "Polish camps." This met with the response of the German Association of Historians, who appealed to the German public to oppose the repeated erroneous formulations. "These unacceptable words suggest a completely false idea of the responsibility for the crimes" – wrote the German historians.

The persistent attempts to assign responsibility for the German Nazi camps to Poland are shameful and require ﬁrm reaction. In practice, intervention is made by Polish embassy in the particular country, which includes the legal route if media do not apologise in a form of correction. The role of the Institute of National Remembrance involves substantive support for the activities of the Polish diplomacy. IPN has prepared information materials for the embassies, including the www.truthaboutcamps.eu website.

The Bulgarian version of the website can be found at www.bg.truthaboutcamps.eu. It can also be entered through the home page.