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Report warns of attempts to distort history, blur German responsibility for Holocaust

27.01.2021 14:35
Attempts to distort historical facts pose a critical threat to Holocaust memory and to fostering a world without genocide, a report cited by a Polish news agency has warned, 76 years after the liberation of Auschwitz.
A photo made available by the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum shows the unloading ramp and the Gate of Death at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp in southern Poland in the winter of 1945.
A photo made available by the Auschwitz Memorial and Museum shows the unloading ramp and the "'Gate of Death" at the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp in southern Poland in the winter of 1945.Photo: EPA/STANISLAW MUCHA/www.auschwitz.org

Although Holocaust denial is still a significant problem, “Holocaust distortion” has in many ways become an even more pernicious threat, the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance said in a report, as cited by Poland's PAP news agency.

One example of Holocaust distortion is attempts to blur the responsibility for Nazi Germany’s establishment of concentration and death camps by blaming other nations or ethnic groups, according to the Recognizing and Countering Holocaust Distortion: Recommendations for Policy and Decision Makers report.

“This form of distortion shifts sole blame for the Holocaust onto local collaborators while ignoring Nazi Germany’s responsibility for the genocide,” according to the report, which was issued ahead of Wednesday’s International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“References to the Holocaust that mischaracterize and distort its history and relevance are an insult to the memories and experiences of victims and survivors,” the report also said.

It added that Holocaust distortion nourished conspiracy theories, dangerous forms of nationalism and antisemitism.

Poland, which was occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II, has long sought to eliminate misleading wording from historical and newspaper accounts suggesting that it was responsible for Holocaust-era concentration camps on its soil.

Since 2013, any references suggesting that wartime German death camps in occupied Poland were “Polish” have been seen by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance as a form of falsifying history, the PAP news agency reported.

Wednesday, January 27, marks International Holocaust Remembrance Day as proclaimed by the United Nations in 2015.

The suffering of children during the Holocaust is a key focus as the world marks the 76th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German death camp on Wednesday.

The camp operated in German-occupied southern Poland between May 1940 and January 1945.

It was the largest of the German Nazi concentration and death camps.

More than 1.1 million people, mostly European Jews, as well as Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs and people of many other nationalities, perished at the camp before it was liberated by Soviet soldiers on January 27, 1945.

(gs/pk)

Source: PAP, holocaustremembrance.com