Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley 

It is generally considered diplomatic to refer to the holocaust as a Nazi phenomenon, not a German phenomenon. Twenty first century Germans, rather understandably, don't like being associated with the Nazis. It would have to be admitted, though, that the Nazi Party did arise out of Germany and Austria and that some members of that generation are still alive.

To brand the holocaust as Polish seems not just tactless, but historically ignorant. While the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp – the largest of the Nazi concentration camps – was in Poland, and there were, of course, some Polish collaborators, Poland can more accurately be thought of as a victim of the Holocaust than a villain. 

American historical perspectives on the Second World War are, naturally, rather different, from those in Britain, or any other country. Americans tend to date WWII from the seventh of December 1941. The British and French would tend to say third of September 1939. For the Poles, it was the first of September. But talking about "Polish death camps" is not just ignorant, but diplomatically maladroit. 

Just imagine if George W Bush had, ever, said something so stupid. The media reaction would have been enormous. But this is Barack Obama, so it is being treated as comparatively minor.