News
Polish Death Camps? Against Falsehood
The world premiere of a film designed to counter misconceptions about the existence of „Polish death camps” took place on the country’s national day, November 11. The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent the film Upside Down to all the country’s embassies and consulates. The title refers to the total reversal of roles—the roles of perpetrator and victim—in this case.
Upside Down will be shown on the educational channel used by schools in Canada. TVP Info will show it in Poland in the near future. Upside Down will also be distributed for free with the Toronto Star, a newspaper where the phrase “Polish concentration camps” appeared particularly frequently.
During a presentation for journalists in Warsaw, Andrzej Sadoś from the Minitry of Foreign Affairs stressed that the origins of the concept of “Polish death camps” or “Polish concentration camps” lie in profound historical ignorance, especially among the young. He noted that the film contains interviews with students from elite schools who are completely unembarrassed by their lack of knowledge. They cannot explain who the Nazis were. When asked who built concentration camps in Poland, they reply: “They’re Polish camps—so, it was the Poles.”
The director and screenwriter, Violetta Cardinal, lives in Canada. She states that the falsification of history in North America is “reaching the critical point,” and explains that she wanted her film to shock people. It shows how damaging such falsifications as “Polish concentration camps” can be, and how, if left unopposed, they “strip Poles of their self-esteem and dignity.”
The film ends with the words, “Those who do not know history have a tendency to repeat it.”
In June this year, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee decided to change the name of the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp to “Auschwitz Birkenau German Nazi Concentration and Extermination Camp (1940-1945)”.
The Polish proposal for changing the name of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was a reaction to the falsehoods appearing with increasing frequency in the international media, referring to the Nazi death camps as “Polish.”
