By the CNN Wire Staff May 30, 2012 -- Updated 1959 GMT (0359 HKT) Washington (CNN) -- The Polish prime minister on Wednesday reacted strongly to what the White House said was a mistake by President Barack Obama during a Medal of Freedom ceremony. The trouble came Tuesday when Obama paid tribute to Jan Karski, the former Polish officer who escaped Nazi imprisonment in World War II and provided firsthand accounts to the Western Allies of atrocities. Karski received the award posthumously. "Before one trip across enemy lines, resistance fighters told him that Jews were being murdered on a massive scale, and smuggled him into the Warsaw Ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself. Jan took that information to President Franklin Roosevelt, giving one of the first accounts of the Holocaust and imploring to the world to take action," Obama said. The president's use of the term "Polish death camp," rather than Nazi death camp sparked outrage in Poland. Obama's words "touched all Poles," Prime Minister Donald Tusk said in a statement. "We always react in the same way when ignorance, lack of knowledge, bad intentions lead to such a distortion of history, so painful for us here in Poland, in a country which suffered like no other in Europe during World War II. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted Tuesday night: "White House apologizes for outrageous blunder. PM Tusk will take his position in the morning. It's a shame that this important ceremony was overshadowed by ignorance and incompetence." http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/30/politics/obama-death-camps/index.html?hpt=hp_t2 Ha Ha
LOL. He's not telling us Americans anything we didn't already know. I wonder if Romney will get that bust of Winston Churchill back from Britan for the White House.
It was a death camp in Poland, a Polish death camp. I just know there is a joke involving comprehension and Poles in there somewhere.
I guess they don't teach history at Columbia or Harvard any more. Or maybe Odumbo was just too stoned on the day this was covered in class.
Its odd... has anyone ever been taught in american schools that there were polish death camps? I mean the thought would never have occurred to me. They were Nazi death camps. common English short form Nazism, German: Nationalsozialismus National Socialism Death camps. I do not think Obama made a mistake. I think the Poles are correct, Obama was trying to rewrite history.
I think austerity is making them grumpy: http://www.praguepost.com/business/13132-polish-austerity-loses-steam.html
Obama hasn't got the education or experience to be president and it shows time and time again in his inept foreign policy. We'll be lucky if he doesn't get us all killed.
Yes, I'm sure Obama did not know the death camps in Poland were actually Nazi death camps. Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? A. Oneâbut the light bulb has to really want to change.
We might forgive him for the mistake if he was honest person (honest mistake) but guess what? No one trusts Obama, he might have said that on purpose.