Ehemaliger Auschwitz-Häftling kann deutschen Verleger verklagen, weil er „Polnisches Vernichtungslager“ geschrieben hat, entscheidet das Gericht
Former Auschwitz prisoner can sue German publisher for writing “Polish death camp”, rules court
Von dat_9600gt_user
19 Kommentare
I don’t get why would anyone write that on 2025. Is even basic Wikipedia not available there?
> The case originated in April 2017, when a German newspaper publisher, Mittelbayerischer Verlag KG, published an article about a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor whose sister, it said, was “murdered in the Polish extermination camp of Treblinka”.
International media often mistakenly refer to Nazi-German camps established in occupied Poland as “Polish”. …
> In this case, Mittelbayerischer Verlag changed its article within a few hours following intervention by the Polish consulate in Munich. Its corrected text stated that the sister “was murdered by the Nazis in the German Nazi extermination camp of Treblinka in occupied Poland”.
> However, seven months later, in November 2017, Zalewski filed a civic lawsuit against the publisher at a Warsaw court demanding that it refrain from using the term “Polish camps”, publish an apology on its website for infringing his personal rights, and pay 50,000 zloty (€11,800) to his association.
Are there any consequences for people making such frivolous lawsuits here? This is one of the most ridiculous lawsuits I have heard so far inside the EU. It shouldn’t be controversial to publish an interview word by word and then correct it after complaints. They obviously didn’t have an agenda. This concentration camp was in Poland so a German would call it Polish. This has nothing to do with who was leading it. Everyone knows that these were Nazis camps.
I don’t think it’s in good taste to call it Polish death camp. However, making this a legal issue is problematic for me. Also, it’s a bit funny cause Poles claim Copernicus because he lived in what is nowadays Poland, even though he was German speaking. But I digress
Good ruling. “Polish death camp” shifts blame from Nazi Germany to the occupied land. It’s not pedantry, survivors fought decades against that erasure. Just say “German Nazi camp in occupied Poland.” Simple.
Somebody doesn’t understand how language works, and that „Polish“ can mean „geographically situated in Poland“.
The comments here defending the phrase ‚polish death camps‘ as normal and logical are all the proof you need that courts really do need to get involved. Appalling
The article was up for a few hours and got corrected after a call from Poland. Seven months later he sued the newspaper.
He is 100. If it gets dragged on much longer, he won’t be alive to see if it worked.
But there’s no way around the ruling in the end, it’s a common complaint of Poland and they always win. A thing they keep an eye on everytime international press uses the wrong description. It doesn’t matter to them if it’s intentional or not.
This could be a part of a wider trend of accusing former Soviet states that are in the EU, in collaboration and revising their involvement in the Holocaust. To no one’s surprise this comes from Russian propaganda machine, and it’s their tactic to discredit specifically Ukraine, Poland and the Baltic states. In his visit to Yad Vashem in 2020, Putin specifically highlighted that those who collaborated were often ‘crueler than their masters’. This could be an honest editorial mistake, but could be a part of something bigger like this propagandist Holocaust revisionism.
Some thoughts.
“It’s used as a geographic term.”
Why even mention the location. What extra information does it provide? To differentiate it from a French Death Camp? The six German death camps were all located in German-occupied Poland. When someone hears “death camp” they are not going to be thinking of something in Ile-de-France. It’s redundant information if using it with the intent of locality.
“They were located in Poland.”
Some were located in the so-called “General Government” which was a German occupied and administered zone that consisted of former Polish territory (this is significantly different to collaborationist entities like Quisling’s Norway and Vichy France or outright German allies like Hungary and Romania).
Some death camps like Auschwitz-Birkenau were located in Germany proper as they were directly annexed into Germany.
“Nobody thinks Poles ran death camps”
Historical revisionism and distortion is something real and an issue that has to be constantly combatted. As more years pass , and the number of living victims decreases, there is ample space for distortion. This can be intentional or not. It is up to leaders, historians, and institutions to keep historical memory alive as Gen Z and Gen Alpha start learning about the horrors of WWII. Poles are right to confront these historical distortions as they show up.
“Why make such a big deal out of it.”
The death camps are something unparalleled in human history, with an industrial-scale killing of millions of people. It deserves eternal damnation and will never be etched out of the history books if civilization doesn’t end itself. As Germans set up and administered these death camps and a significant portion of the prisoner population were Poles (and holders of Polish citizenship), Poland considers it an unjust treatment by putting an epithet that implies some sort of ownership, geographic or administrative.
“Nobody is shifting blame”
As someone who grew up in the 90s and 2000s, I witnessed how “German” was replaced by “Nazi.” My history teacher in high school was adamant about using “Nazi” instead of “German.” When a student was answering a question about which countries Germany invaded in 1939-1941 she promptly corrected him to use “Nazis” instead of “Germans.” There’s even a scene in Stranger Things where Steve is corrected by the kids into using “Nazis” when he said “Germans.” I remember a book using “Nazi Poland” for German-occupied Poland. It’s strange to me how many people in the West are sensitive towards Germany and try to decouple it from the Nazis, but they don’t see the issue with using irresponsible, distorting, and insensitive terminology when it comes to Poland.
>as it suggests that Poland, rather than Germany, was responsible for establishing and running the camps
No, it doesn’t suggest that. It’s just an awkward way to state that those camps were geographically in Poland. Nobody in Germany, not even the most right-wing nutjobs, believes, nor would try to suggest, that those camps were established and run by the Polish.
A long time ago someone said to my ex,
“I don’t know anything about Poland except that they sold us out to the Nazi’s”
This is exactly the problem, that you can assume it means one thing when you read the line in question-
But there are actually many people that believe this lie.
It seems to only get worse with the rise of internet trolls and bots…
A court in Warsaw has ruled that a former Auschwitz prisoner can seek financial compensation from a German publisher that used the term “Polish extermination camp” to describe a German-Nazi death camp in occupied Poland. However, it also found that he cannot request an apology for the error.
The ruling comes as part of a long-running legal battle fought by Stanisław Zalewski (pictured above), a former member of the Polish underground resistance who is president of the Polish Association of Former Political Prisoners of Nazi Prisons and Concentration Camps. He turned 100 in October.
The case originated in April 2017, when a German newspaper publisher, Mittelbayerischer Verlag KG, published an article about a Polish-Jewish Holocaust survivor whose sister, it said, was “murdered in the Polish extermination camp of Treblinka”.
International media often mistakenly refer to Nazi-German camps established in occupied Poland as “Polish”. The Polish authorities have long campaigned against such usage, as it suggests that Poland, rather than Germany, was responsible for establishing and running the camps.
In this case, Mittelbayerischer Verlag changed its article within a few hours following intervention by the Polish consulate in Munich. Its corrected text stated that the sister “was murdered by the Nazis in the German Nazi extermination camp of Treblinka in occupied Poland”.
However, seven months later, in November 2017, Zalewski filed a civic lawsuit against the publisher at a Warsaw court demanding that it refrain from using the term “Polish camps”, publish an apology on its website for infringing his personal rights, and pay 50,000 zloty (€11,800) to his association.
That sparked a complex legal battle, as the case made its way between various Polish courts, including the Supreme Court, and also the Court of Justice of the European Union.
At question were two central and related issues: whether Zalewski, who was not referred to in Mittelbayerischer Verlag’s article, had the right to bring the case; and whether he was able to bring it in Poland, rather than Germany.
Eventually, earlier this year, the Supreme Court found that the case could be heard in Poland. On Wednesday last week, however, in a closed session, the court of appeal in Warsaw ruled that, while Zalewski can pursue compensation, he cannot demand an apology, reports the *Rzeczpospolita* daily.
What that means in effect is that Zalewski could now return to the lower courts and seek compensation. Legal news service [Prawo.pl](http://Prawo.pl) notes that Zalewski could also appeal to the Supreme Court against last week’s ruling, arguing that he should also be allowed to seek an apology.
However, given that he has just turned 100, the case is a “race against time” and a further appeal could “delay the proceedings for several more years”.
Based. Krauts try to shift the blame from them to Poland.
This is such an idiotic fabricated controversy.
NOBODY is saying Poland shares blame for the holocaust. Not even the German far-right has ever said that. One insignificant writer’s clumsy choice of words (*he clearly meant „death camps in poland“*) is being inflated into some insidious conspiracy to shift blame. Why? Because PiS needs Polish people to hate their neighbors so they vote them back into power.
What a joke of a ruling, but lets be honest, nobody is surprised stuff like this comes out of Poland. If something bad happens to a pole, its always a germans fault.
Poland likes to pretend there is a mainstream effort by Germans to shift the blame of the holocaust onto them; they use this to deny collaboration and widespread antisemitism that went on to kill and expel Jews after WW2.
Love it when the Poles want to deny any role whatsoever in the events of the Holocaust
Sure, plenty of Poles fought and died trying to stop the Holocaust and the Nazis, for which they deserve all the credit in the world
But it doesn’t change the fact that the fascists found plenty of domestic supporters of Hitler’s programme
Nobody was sweeping anything under the rug so get your story straight.
Calling Nazi camps *‘Polish death camps’* has become so common and frustrating that at this point, every journalist who uses that phrase should be heavily fined.