Directors of museums located at the sites of former Nazi death camps are protesting a Polish prosecutor’s office decision not to initiate an investigation into the phrase “Polish death camps.”

On Monday, a joint letter to the Polish Attorney General and Polish Minister of Justice signed by the heads of state museums at Auschwitz, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Kulmhof, Stutthof, Gross-Rosen and Majdanek, criticized the decision not open an investigation, saying that it undermines national efforts to eradicate the use of the term.

In October, the Warsaw prosecutor’s office refused to open an investigation into the phrase “Polish death camps” used by the German newspaper Rheinische Post in August 2013. The request was submitted to the prosecution by members of the Union of Poles in Germany.

Antisemitism Notebook

Your weekly guide through the news and the noise of how rising antisemitism and disputes over how to address it are shaping American Jewish life.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

Under Polish law, publicly insulting the Polish Republic is punishable by imprisonment of up to three years. Polish prosecutors, however, have decided that the phrase “Polish death camps” is not saying that the Poles founded the camps but that they were located on Polish territory.

“We have seen many times how the lie confused young people from abroad – ready to believe that these camps were created and carried out by Poland and the Poles,” wrote the museum directors. “Perpetrators triumph and victims again are humiliated. After all, Nazi propaganda was based on the belief that a lie repeated many times becomes the truth in the end.”

The letter was signed by, among others, Piotr Cywinski, director of the Auschwitz- Birkenau Museum, Tomasz Kranz, director of the Museum at Majdanek, and Krzysztof Skwirowski, director of the Museum at Sobibor.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

The coming year promises to be filled with more complex and historic developments. We are entering an era where independent, fact-based Jewish journalism will be more important than ever. We need to be ready for whatever 2025 will bring, and with your help, we can be.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

$36 $500

$120 $180 Other amount