Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

FBI Chief Apologizes for Suggesting Poland To Blame for Holocaust

Comey’s apology, which came on Monday at the urging of the Polish foreign ministry, follows his op-ed about the Holocaust, which was published last week by the Washington Post._

“I regret linking Germany and Poland … because Poland was invaded and occupied by Germany,” Comey said in a letter to the Polish ambassador released by the Polish foreign ministry Thursday, according to Reuters.

Comey’s article read: “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places, didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.”

But in his letter to Warsaw, Comey wrote: “The Polish state bears no responsibility for the horrors imposed by the Nazis. I wish I had not used any other country names, because my point was a universal one about human nature.”

The United States’ ambassador to Poland, Stephen Mull, criticized Comey’s op-ed as historically inaccurate. But the Polish foreign ministry insisted Comey also apologize, the PAP news agency reported. With Comey’s apology, Warsaw considers the matter settled, officials told Reuters.

Hungary, which, unlike Poland, was an ally of Nazi Germany, also protested Comey’s remarks. “The words of the FBI director bear witness to astounding insensitivity and impermissible superficiality,” the Hungarian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

Separately, Hungary’s government organized an event last week to commemorate the Holocaust at Britain’s House of Lords — the British parliament’s upper house — as part of Hungary’s presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, or IHRA.

London was “a symbolic venue as Britain had a very strong Jewish community from whom there’s a lot to learn,” Szabolcs Takacs, Hungary’s state secretary for EU affairs, said.

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.

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.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.