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Young Pole sets record straight on Nazi German death camp

24.06.2021 13:45
A Polish teenager has succeeded in getting a publisher to correct a false claim in a textbook that Poles worked as auxiliary staff at the Treblinka Nazi German death camp during World War II, Polish state news agency PAP has reported.
Jakub Vaugon.
Jakub Vaugon.Photo: Facebook/Warsaw Rising Museum

In 2017, Jakub Vaugon, a teenager from a Polish-French family living in Paris, noticed the claim in a French history textbook, PAP reported.

Jakub's parents then contacted the Treblinka Museum in Poland, asking for help in checking the claim in the textbook. The museum confirmed it was a historical error and appealed to the publisher for a correction.

The publisher of the textbook then apologised for the claim. In a letter sent to the Vaugon family, the publisher said that the error had been corrected in a new version of the book and insisted that no such mistakes would appear in their publications again.

The Treblinka death camp, located in north-east occupied Poland, operated between July 1942 and October 1943. During this time, between 700,000 and 900,000 Jews were murdered there by the Germans, along with 2,000 Roma people.

It was the second-biggest extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland after Auschwitz-Birkenau.

(jh/pk)

Source: PAP, ipn.gov.pl