Polish Consulate in New York involved
| Wed, 19 Jul 2006 |
(...)
Bardzo dziekujemy za wsparcie w walce z pojawiajacymi sie zwrotami typu "Polish concentration/death camp" na lamach gazet, a zwlaszcza w okolicy Bostonu. Staramy sie podejmowac wszelkich sposobow na wyrugowanie tych przejawow ignorancji z mentalnosci niektorych dziennikarzy amerykanskich i robimy to mniej lub bardziej skutecznie na terenie naszego okregu konsularnego. Niestety bez reakcji (emailowej, faxowej) Amerykanow polskiego pochodzenia naklonienie redakcji gazet t.j. New York Times oraz Boston Globe byloby bardzo trudne. Mam nadzieje, ze nasza wspolpraca przyczyni sie do zmniejszenia tych skandalicznych przypadkow i w zalaczeniu wysylam opracowane korespondencje konsulatu w tegorocznych incydentach - dla kazdej sprawy uzywam robocza nazwe "historia choroby".
Serdecznie dziekuje i pozdrawiam
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of the Republic of Poland
233 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016
phone (646) 237-2110, fax (646) 237-2105
www.PolishconsulateNY.org
Documents attached: (historia choroby)
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I:
12 stycznia 2006 w NY Times ukazuje sie artykul w czesci „Obituaries” January 12, 2006
Sidney Frank, 86, Dies; Took a German Drink and a Vodka Brand to Stylish Heights
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Sidney E. Frank, who was forced to leave Brown University as a freshman when his money ran out, went on to concoct spectacularly successful marketing campaigns for Jägermeister liqueur and Grey Goose vodka, then became so rich he gave Brown its biggest gift ever, died Tuesday in San Diego. He was 86.
His death was announced by the Sidney Frank Importing Company.
After Mr. Frank sold Grey Goose to Bacardi for an estimated $2.3 billion in 2004, he liked to call himself "the $2 billion man" and told BusinessWeek that he planned to become "the $10 billion man."
He died well short of his goal, but this deprivation hardly sabotaged his lifestyle. He owned six palatial homes, traveled with four chefs and, when he could no longer play golf, hired a team of professionals to play just for him; he instructed them on which clubs to use.
His generosity was similarly outsize: a $23.8 million bonus for his secretary, $100 million in scholarships and $20 million for a building for Brown, among other gifts. After he saw "Escape From Sobibor," a film from 1987 based on the revolt in 1943 of Jewish prisoners at a Polish death camp, he tracked down nine survivors and sent them checks of $11,000 each.
The ebullient Mr. Frank was known for audacious sales techniques, including employing a squadron of pretty young women, called Jägerettes, to patrol bars and promote Jägermeister. Sales increased from 600 cases a month in 1974, when Mr. Frank started selling it, to more than two million cases last year.
Grey Goose's success was also stellar, but involved a different technique from Jägermeister's, which rarely advertised. Mr. Frank plowed his entire first year's profit from Grey Goose, $3 million, into ads.
The idea was to build an elegant image, beginning with a price about $10 a bottle more than the market leader, Absolut. He gave Grey Goose away at charity events and deposited bottles in limousines used for the Academy Awards ceremony. It became the best-selling premium vodka in the country.
Sidney Edward Frank was born on Oct. 2, 1919, in Montville, Conn., where his father and mother raised chickens and grew vegetables. He graduated from the Norwich Free Academy, which was not free; his tuition was paid by the town, which had no high school. Two years ago, Mr. Frank gave the school $12 million.
At 12, he started as an entrepreneur by making a ladder to climb Mohegan Rock, a tourist attraction. He charged a dime to climbers.
He earned mostly A's in high school and planned on paying for college with earnings from Mohegan Rock and odd jobs. When he applied to Brown, he was told his chances were borderline. His firm handshake finally persuaded the dean of admissions to accept him, he was told.
Once there, he was assigned a room next to that of another freshman, Edward Sarnoff, a son of David Sarnoff, the founder of the National Broadcasting Company. Mr. Sarnoff introduced him to Louise Rosenstiel, daughter of Lewis Rosenstiel, founder of Schenley Industries, one of the nation's largest distillers. They later married.
"The easiest way to make a million dollars is to marry it rather than earn it," Mr. Frank said in an interview with The Daily Mail, a London newspaper, in 2005.
When he ran out of tuition money, he applied for a job at Pratt & Whitney. There were many applicants, and he was told to come back in a couple of hours to demonstrate that he knew how to use a slide rule, which he did not. He bought one, pored over the directions and got the job, which involved keeping Allied planes flying in World War II.
Not yet married to Miss Rosenstiel, he met her father, who asked him to use his engineering skills to help develop an alcohol-based motor fuel. That flopped, so Mr. Frank switched to liquor.
After his sixth marriage proposal to Miss Rosenstiel, which she accepted, he went to work for the family's company and soon vastly increased the production of a Scotch distillery that Schenley had bought in Glasgow.
He discovered that the distillery was still following a law limiting distillation to twice a week, a law that had been repealed. With daily production, the still, for which Schenley had paid $13 million, rang up $10 million in profit the first year, nearly recouping the cost.
Mr. Frank soon discovered that marrying a fortune was not a foolproof tactic, as he became enmeshed in repeated familial disputes. He was fired, rehired, made president, and fired again. His father-in-law then blackballed him from the industry.
Mr. Frank sold art for a few years, then clawed his way back, first by supplying sake to sushi restaurants. He discovered Jägermeister - a German liqueur variously described as tasting like licorice, root beer or cough syrup - on a stroll through Yorkville, a historically German neighborhood in Manhattan.
Germans viewed the syrupy drink, which contained many herbs, as medicinal, but Mr. Frank saw another niche: the hard-partying college market. He said he got a big break when a newspaper in Baton Rouge, La., likened Jägermeister to Valium, even if it had no drugs.
The party scene Mr. Frank fostered - rife with free shots at the bar, promotions by young women and, later, male Jägerdudes - developed a reputation for wild behavior. In 1997, a group of Jägerettes persuaded the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to sue Mr. Frank's company, charging sexual harassment. Some said they had been harassed by Mr. Frank himself.
The company and Mr. Frank denied the charges, but paid $2.9 million as part of a settlement.
Mr. Frank's first wife died in 1972. He is survived by his wife, Marian; his daughter, Catherine Halstead, of Seattle; his son, Matthew, of Marin County in California; his sister, Edna Nowitz, of Bridgeport, Conn.; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
In recent years, Mr. Frank was working on a travel magazine, a new Irish whiskey and an energy drink called Crunk.
List konsula generalnego K.W. Kasprzyka do Public Editor NYTimes’a Byrona Calame (12 stycznia 2006) KONSULAT GENERALNY
RZECZYPOSPOLITEJ POLSKIEJ
W NOWYM JORKU
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CONSULATE GENERAL
OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND
IN NEW YORK
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January 12, 2006
Mr. Byron Calame
Public Editor – The New York Times
Dear Sir,
Douglas Martin’s obituary note on the late Sidney Frank (January 12, page B7) contains following phrase: “…After he saw “Escape from Sobibor”, a film from 1987 based on the revolt of Jewish prisoners at a Polish death camp…”.
After a long period of absence of such a mindless insulting and history-falsifying nonsense like “Polish death camps” in “The New York Times”, we find it again in print.
But this time it is not my intention, as we usually react, to refer the author to the history textbooks and perfectly documented performance of the German Nazi mass genocide machinery. I rather wish to appeal to his sensitivity and responsibility for offering that kind of wording to the public of the newspaper which for decades has been seen as a media ethics standards setter. Also the editors of the mentioned obituary must be questioned about the quality of their job in terms of thoughtful proofreading.
The timeline of “The New York Times” using phrases like “Polish death camps” is fairly long. Any time the newspaper labeled Nazi death camps in Germany-occupied Poland as “Polish” , it meant devilish switch between the perpetrators and the victims. May be this time the editorial board of “The New York Times” should once and for all incorporate the usage of “Polish death camps” into the set of the paper’s internal guidelines and editors’ wording advisory.
I am quite aware of the unfortunate ambiguity of the English language which defines “Polish death camps” as simply geographically located in Poland. But at the same time this may clearly indicate that those camps were operated by Poland. It more than suggests to the reades that they were part of the “Polish genocide” as “The San Francisco Chronicle” disgracefully stated in its New Year’s edition (nice wishes for the Polish Americans, aren’t they -?) and then refused to publish a letter to the editor authored not by an outraged Pole but by the activist of an important Jewish foundation in the Bay Area.
The dreadful Holocaust period of gas chambers and the brutal killing of the innocent people for handing over a glass of water to the human dignity-stripped Jew (which was the case of the Nazi law in occupied Poland, exclusively) slowly enters the written history. It certainly demands from our generations to be more cautious about the historical truth then ever.
On a sunny day in 1940, a young gentleman in his twenties was captured by Gestapo on one of the streets of Krakow, Poland. A bunch of false ID cards, reportedly kennkarten for the Jews, were found on him. He was immediately deported to Auschwitz I Camp (at that time, only the Polish people were inmates there), and had his number – 246 (three digits, one of the first groups deported !) – tattooed on his arm. A few weeks later he was shot to death there. Thas young man was the son of my grandmother’s sister.
Please, don’t you write “Polish death camps” anymore; just don’t ruin my faith in the principles of “The New York Times” and its proud role in the public service of mass media that I have believed in for so many years.
Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, Consul General
President of the Polish Journalists Association in Krakow, 1980-81 (Solidarity period)
Visiting Lecturer at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Colorado University at Boulder, 1988
Member of the Advisory Board, The Jewish Heritage in Poland Initiative, Taube Foundation for Jewish Life & Culture, San Francisco
Do dnia 20 stycznia brak odpowiedzi na list konsula generalnego, wiec z-ca konsula generalnego M. Skulimowski wysyla ponizszy e-mail do Public Editor.
Dear Mr. Calame
A week ago I sent you a letter from Consul General of Poland in New Your regarding the occurrence of a disturbing phrase "Polish death camp" in one of the articles (see letter below and attachments). Unfortunately the letter has been left unanswered since then. As a voice of Polish Government and Polish-Americans living in 11 northeastern states (nearly 3,5 million - Census 2000) we do not really understand if it was an incident of NY Times ignorance or simple miscommunication. Please review the
e-mail carefully and take a stance, print the letter, respond to it and train your editorial staff.
Hoping to hear from you soon.
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of Poland
in New York
W ciagu godziny otrzymujemy odpowiedz z biura Public Editor: Dear Marek Skulimowski,
Thanks for following up. I had thought a response was already sent to you, but obviously not.
Earlier this week, I raised the issue about the phrase "Polish death camp" with Bill Borders, a senior editor at the paper.
He has since distributed a note to the staff explaining that the phrase is historically inaccurate, and that it is also offensive to many readers. In addition, he suggested ways to express the idea that the death camps were part of the Nazi regime.
Sincerely,
Joe Plambeck
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times
W odpowiedzi na powyzszy e-mail od J. Plambecka z-ca konsula generalnego domaga sie spotkania oraz stosownych zmian w The New York Times style book. Dear Mr. Plambeck
Thank you for you prompt reply and we really appreciate your attitude towards the problem and your explaining the staff that the phrase is historically incorrect. As you probably know this historical inaccuracy has been an issue for years, so we insist on organizing an editorial staff meeting with well-respected Holocaust historians as well as consul general, and finally make an appropriate entry in the New York Times style book. It would definitely end the improper and offensive usage of the phrase.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of Poland
in New York
Natychmiast otrzymujemy odpowiedz, tym razem od Bill Borders (senior editor): Dear Mr. Skulimowski:
My colleague, Joe Plambeck, has passed along your correspondence on our unfortunate use of the erroneous term "Polish death camps." As he has explained to you, we much regret having used the term. It violates our style rules, which seek to reflect the actual history of the Nazi domination and occupation of Poland in the 1940's.
Inasmuch as you and we agree on the matter, I don't see the need for a meeting to discuss it. All I can offer is the hope that we will not transgress in any future article.
Thanks for writing, and for expecting much of us.
Best regards,
Bill Borders, senior editor, The New York Times.
W odpowiedzi na e-mail od B. Bordersa z-ca konsula generalnego w liscie do wydawcy A. Sulzbergera, z dnia 23 stycznia br., w dalszym ciagu domaga sie zmian w The New York Times style book oraz opublikowania listu konsula generalnego na lamach gazety (do dzis - 24 stycznia godz. 11:00 brak odpowiedzi) Dear Mr. Sulzberger
Following the publication by the New York Times in its January 12th, 2006 edition of Douglas Martin’s obituary note on the late Sidney Frank containing the phrase “Polish death camp”, the Polish Consul General in New York, Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk, wrote a letter to the NYT editors requesting a rectification of this historically incorrect and wrongful _expression.
We greatly appreciate the editors’ initiative to instruct the NYT staff on this sensitive issue, however, we insist on the NYT publishing the aforementioned letter, so that not only the paper’s journalists but also its readers can be made aware of the clarification of this problem. Please be reminded that many readers may not know European history well enough to be able to understand that the term “Polish death camps” refers to Nazi death camps in Germany-occupied Poland. The disputed article might have been understood by thousands of Americans that Poles are the ones responsible for the Holocaust – a premise that could not possibly be further from the truth, particularly since Poles were among those who suffered the most from the Nazis’ exterminatory efforts. Hoping to see the letter in print we expect a minimum of empathy and sensitivity from the NYT editors towards the issue, so painful to Poles, Holocaust survivors and all those who care about the historical truth.
The NYT’s reluctance to publish the letter cannot but be perceived as ill will on the part of the editors and unwillingness to publicly admit that a mistake was made. Considering the problem solved after an exchange of e-mails between the consulate and the NYT editors would bring down this important issue to a discussion on language technicalities rather than to the disclosure of the truth to the readers. Furthermore, such a quasi-solution to the problem is at odds with the usual procedure followed by respectful newspapers whose duty is to rectify any mistake in print.
Moreover, we must stress once more that we expect to see an appropriate note in the New York Times style book on the issue of expressions like “Polish death camp”, which could prevent such dreadful mistakes from being made in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of Poland in New York
cc.
Mr. Bill Keller – Executive Editor, The New York Times
Mr. Byron Calame – Public Editor, The New York Times
Mr. Bill Borders – Senior Editor, The New York Times
25 stycznia z-ca konsula generalnego wysyla nastepujacy email do public editor B. Calame oraz B. Bordersa Att 12:44 PM 1/26/2006, you wrote:
Dear Mr Borders
Referring to the usage of the erroneous phrase "Polish death camp" on Jan 13th we have received from your paper a couple of short e-mails with regrets and promises, but unfortunately no one from your staff seems to be interested in proper correction of the mistake, as I requested last Monday (see e-mail below).
As the phrase misleads millions of the NYTimes readers to think that Poles, not Nazis, were those who established and ran the camps, we categorically demand that the consul general's letter (attached) be published or at least the mistake publicly admitted. Let me inform you that within only seven days the NY Times used the offensive phrase TWICE (Jan 6th & 12th) which perfectly underlines the importance of including the phrase into NY Times style book. Your internal instructions will not help in the future if you do not write about the issue openly and make an appropriate entry in the style book. We do not require much, only journalists' decency and hope you will reconsider the issue again and publish the consul general's letter in the days to come. Otherwise we will be obliged to go public with the clarification based on the NY Times years-long mistakes.
Sincerely
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of Poland
Bill Borders natychmiast odpowiada : Dear Mr. Skulimowski:
I am sorry that The New York Times has seemed unresponsive to you. As I wrote you six days ago, The Times does indeed care about the way we refer to the concentration camps that the Nazis established in Poland, as indeed we care about all historical references. I can't imagine what about my previous correspondence led you to any contrary conclusion.
The letter from Mr. Kasprzyk asks that we "once and for all" incorporate into our internal guidelines and editors' advisories a directive that the phrase "Polish death camps" is unacceptable and to be avoided. As I have told you and others, this has been done. I cannot possibly be clearer about this point: It is the formal, official policy of The New York Times that we NOT refer to these death camps as "Polish," and our staff has been so informed -- this month, and previously.
That does not mean that it will never happen again. With a staff of 1,200 individuals, editors and writers, all sorts of things get into our pages that shouldn't. But we are doing our best, because of our interest in historical precision and because we know that the faulty reference to "Polish" is offensive to a good many of our Polish-American readers.
Thanks for holding The Times to a high standard.
Best, Bill Borders, senior editor
26 stycznia 2006 na stronie A2 w Correction NYTimes zamieszcza sprostowanie January 12, 2006
Sidney Frank, 86, Dies; Took a German Drink and a Vodka Brand to Stylish Heights
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Correction Appended
Sidney E. Frank, who was forced to leave Brown University as a freshman when his money ran out, went on to concoct spectacularly successful marketing campaigns for Jägermeister liqueur and Grey Goose vodka, then became so rich he gave Brown its biggest gift ever, died Tuesday in San Diego. He was 86…..
Correction: Jan. 27, 2006
An obituary on Jan. 12 about Sidney Frank, a liquor importer and marketing executive, referred incorrectly to a World War II death camp featured in "Escape from Sobibor," a film that led Mr. Frank to give money to some of the camp's survivors. Sobibor was set up and run by the German occupiers of Poland; it was not a "Polish death camp."
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II: 1. The Boston Globe 7 maja 2006 publikuje ponizszy artykul:Files uncover Nazis' trail of death
Entries cast horrors in mundane detail
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff | May 7, 2006
BAD AROLSEN, Germany -- The death books seem utterly ordinary, their covers
inscribed with neither swastikas nor other frightening Nazi symbols. They
are just the black-and-white, cardboard-covered composition books that
generations of schoolchildren have used for handwriting practice. And,
indeed, every entry is in neat cursive.
On April 20, 1942, the commandant of the Mauthausen concentration camp in
Austria approved the special killing of 300 prisoners to mark the Fuehrer's
birthday. The execution list runs for pages, each individual receiving a
single line -- name, birthdate, place of birth, inmate number, and an
epitaph, ''By order of R.S.H.A. shot," the acronym for the Central Office
for Security of the Reich.
The cause of death for each was a single bullet to the base of the skull:
Genickschuss -- neck shot. The executions on that spring day occurred at
two-minute intervals. Every snap of the firing pin was duly noted in fussy
script in the Totenbuch, or death book, for 1942-43. The birthday
celebration murders started at 11:20 a.m.
11:22. Neck shot.
11:24. Neck shot
11:26. Neck shot.
Later this month, after years of pressure from Holocaust scholars, Jewish
groups, and the US government, the immense terror trove at the Red Cross's
International Tracing Service are expected to be opened to historians and
other researchers for the first time.
''There is extraordinary material in Bad Arolsen on the functioning and
structure of the camps and slave labor systems," said Johannes Houwink ten
Cate, professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at the University of
Amsterdam in the Netherlands. ''It's one of the largest collections of
historical documents from World War II, enough to keep scholars busy for
generations."
Perhaps most shocking about the Bad Arolsen files is the way the most
horrific atrocities are detailed in ho-hum bureaucratic language.
''In the concentration camps, unlike the extermination camps, everything was
carefully recorded," said Udo Jost, archive manager for the tracing section
of the International Committee of the Red Cross that oversees a gigantic
archive whose millions of files have for six decades been kept largely
hidden from public view. The documents, captured by Allied troops and held
in London before being moved to this central-west German spa town after
World War II, fill some 16 miles of file drawers and shelf space behind the
bland exterior walls of a former SS barracks.
The files were placed under the control of the Red Cross, responsible for
tracing millions of the dead and missing from the camps and slave labor
battalions. Since 1945, the organization has responded to 11.3 million
queries from people in 62 countries, mainly from relatives seeking
information about lost loved ones but also from survivors seeking to
document their incarceration and inhumane treatment under the Nazis.
Although all Third Reich concentration camps were cruel and murderous, not
all were meant for genocide. Many were designed to provide a workforce of
slave laborers for industry and government projects.
In addition to tracking the dead and missing, the Red Cross has also used
the files to help survivors secure pensions, medical benefits, or reparation
payments by providing proof that their ''lost years" were spent in camps or
labor battalions. ''These are archives of horror, yes, but also of hope,"
Jost said.
On May 16, the 11-nation commission that oversees the archives is expected
to vote to allow researchers access to registration documents,
identification cards, police interrogation sheets, concentration camp
records, and all the other details of the millions of camp prisoners and
slave laborers. A Globe reporter was allowed to look at files under the
condition that the full names of victims not be used, in accordance with
German privacy laws and Red Cross policy, meant to protect survivors and
their kin.
The files have been kept off-limits to the public primarily because of
Germany's assertion that access would violate the privacy of victims. Some
records hold highly personal information, including medical details,
criminal records, suggestions of homosexuality, and -- most
controversially -- evidence of collusion between inmates and their captors.
But bureaucratic bullheadedness also played a big role in restricting
access: Many scholars say the Red Cross has kept records private because it
doesn't want historians treading on its turf.
In any event, Germany last month abruptly dropped its longstanding
opposition to granting full access to researchers -- and the Red Cross
indicated that it, too, would go along. The change came after the United
States intensified diplomatic pressure for openness.
The archives contain 50 million documents with the names and information on
some 17.5 million people, including concentration camp inmates, forced
laborers, and other victims of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.
The famous Schindler's list is part of the archives -- consisting of
transport orders diverting more than 1,000 Jews from the Polish death camps
to jobs at a factory operated by the courageous German businessman Oskar
Schindler.
The files at Bad Arolsen provide stark details of slave laborers forced to
repair German railroads under bombardment from Allies, digging tunnels to
hide V-2 rockets, or working on the assembly lines of BMW, Siemens
electronics, and other well-known firms. Researchers say that the opening of
the records is long overdue.
''These are terrible stories from a terrible time," said Ulrich Herbert,
professor of 20th-century history at Germany's University of Freiburg.
''It's frustrating and even appalling that these records have been kept
off-limits to historical research for so long."
Major Holocaust archives in the United States and Israel are open for
general research.
The Bad Arolsen files range from broad outlines of mass murder to sharp
shards of unfathomable cruelty.
There is, for example, the terse account of the Gestapo interrogation of a
31-year-old hospital nurse named Elisabeth arrested in Koblenz.
''This woman is a half-Jew who lives [with her non-Jewish boyfriend] and
acknowledges they have had sexual relations" in violation of Nazi racial
purity laws, according to the two-sentence report.
She was issued a patch of a yellow triangle superimposed on dark triangle,
making a Star of David, to show she was a Jewish ''race defiler." She was
sent to Ravensbrueck concentration camp, disappearing into the maw of the
Holocaust.
But she didn't disappear entirely: If nothing else, interrogation sheet No
II-H-537 -- a form stashed in a long-forgotten manila folder -- gives
evidence that Elisabeth was a woman who once lived, laughed, and loved.
''The files are a kind of rescue from total anonymity," Jost said. ''Her
story is at least known."
As the Allies closed on Germany, SS troops often tried to obliterate damning
documents. At the Gross-Rosen concentration camp in present-day Poland, for
example, death lists were destroyed. But the SS saw no danger in leaving
behind ''delousing" records -- scraps of pink paper that detailed how many
lice were removed from the head of each prisoner.
Inmate No. 87986 in Camp Block 8, had a single louse plucked from his scalp
on Jan. 14, 1945.
Decades later, seeking to prove that he had indeed been an inmate of the
camp, the man turned to the Red Cross, which discovered that single mention
of his name among the millions on file.
''It was enough," Jost said. ''Because one louse was found on his head, this
man could prove he was a victim and may be entitled to compensation."
The Bad Arolsen records deal mainly with concentration camps and slave
laborers, who were often Jews but also included citizens from every country
conquered by the Third Reich.
There is the Frenchman dragooned into duty as a builder of submarine pens at
a German naval base in Norway. There is a German banker from Saarbrueken,
inmate No. 2265, hurled into the hell of Buchenwald in 1937 for making
''treasonous utterances" -- apparently criticisms of the Hitler regime
overheard by an informant at the bank. His record shows ''25 strokes [of the
lash] for laziness" in 1944 and a mouthful of ''missing teeth" after a
questioning session. He survived and was freed in 1945.
There is a Russian slave laborer killed on Sept. 14, 1943, at 4:25 p.m.
while ''defusing dud bombs" dropped by Allies on the center of Kalkum. There
is a Jewish businessman named Aaron from the Dutch city of Rotterdam, whose
records indicate good health when he was admitted to a camp in 1943, but who
died weeks later of ''collapse of the heart, loss of blood circulation,
fractured limbs" -- almost certainly the victim of torture. There is a woman
named Katrina, from the French border region, who was arrested by the
Gestapo ''for complaining she was involuntarily sterilized by authorities
after giving birth to a colored bastard."
The Red Cross will continue managing the archives and also continue its
mission of fleshing out the fates of Nazi victims.
''Many times, these are people who know only that they were seized by the
Germans and forced to labor. They remember their inmate number, the name of
their camp, but nothing else -- not even where, precisely, they had been
held," Jost said.
As an example, he showed the documents of Jelena, a Ukrainian woman pressed
into industrial labor in Germany in 1942.
''We were finally able to discover her details from files of a camp outside
Berlin," he said. ''She worked in a factory making telephone parts for
Siemens. When liberation came, she just wanted to go home. But all these
years later, she is asking, 'What was it that happened to me? Where did they
take me? Why did I suffer?'
''These files cannot replace stolen lives or stolen years," Jost said. ''But
they can fill in some of the awful blank areas."
Petra Krischok of the Globe's Berlin bureau contributed to this report
2. List Konsula Generalnego RP Krzysztofa W. Kasprzyka do redaktora naczelnego The Boston Globe Martina Barona:
KONSULAT GENERALNY
RZECZYPOSPOLITEJ POLSKIEJ
W NOWYM JORKU
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CONSULATE GENERAL
OF THE REPUBLIC OF POLAND
IN NEW YORK
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May 9, 2006
Mr. Martin D. Baron
The Boston Globe
Editor-in-Chief
BY E-MAIL AND FAX
Dear Sir,
On May 7 your paper published a very interesting article by Colin Nickerson under the heading of „Files uncover Nazis’ trail of death”. As we know, it was the decision of the German authorities to finally declassify the gigantic archives in Bad Arolsen containing the documents of German Nazi horrors that gave rise to this article. That particular occasion also brought about a series of important publications in Poland.
The published article would be without blemish if not for one sentence which reads as follows: „The famous Schindler’s list is part of the archives – consisting of transport orders diverting more than 1,000 Jews from the Polish death camps to jobs at a factory operated by the courageous German businessman Oskar Schindler”.
You certainly must agree that the phrase “Polish death camps”, through which the author may have tried to refer to the camps on the Polish territory occupied then by the Third Reich Nazi Germany – is clearly very ambiguous. Geography seems to have misleadingly superimposed the core of the matter here. People of limited or no knowledge about the atrocious German Holocaust machinery might fall under the false impression that death camps of that era were simply Polish: devised, built and operated by Poles. The quoted passage is even more unbecoming as „Polish death camps” are accompanied in the very same sentence by “the courageous German businessman,” which clearly provides for a dubious but definitely stark moral contrast.
For years we, Poles, have continued fighting this historically false simplification, or, if you will, “a mental shortcut”, which takes the blame off the German Nazism and puts it on others. We have been doing it to preserve the truth about that horrific time and to pay homage to 6 million citizens of the occupied Poland murdered by the insanity of Hitler and his henchmen: 3 million Polish Jews and 3 million Polish Christians. No matter how convenient it may seem at this juncture, but at the same time so true, I should like you to know that my mother’s cousin was a victim from the latter category - killed at Auschwitz I in 1941 for assisting Jews. That particular camp was initially build by Germans to annihilate the cream of the crop of Poland. It was only later, after the conference at Wannsee, that Germans extended it to create the huge death complex called Auschwitz-Birkenau which was to methodically exterminate European Jews.
I expect empathy from you, Sir, in this matter so important and sensitive for millions of Polish people. I expect an honest and public correction of your writer’s unfortunate lapse. I do realize that it is just one simple and an ambiguous adjective. It must be admitted, however, that this one short word may denote putting the blame for the most atrocious crime of genocide in human history on a wrong nation. This responsibility has been irrevocably and unequivocally documented by history and clearly lies with the Germans. And NOT POLES.
Sincerely,
Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk
Consul General
cc: Mr. Richard H. Gilman, Publisher & Chairman
3. Odpowiedz emailowa red. naczelnego M. Barona z 10 maja 2006:
Dear Consul General Kasprzyk:
In response to a letter from Poland's honorary consul in Boston, Marek
Lesniewski-Laas, we published a clarification of the story on May 9. We
regret the imprecise, and therefore potentially misleading, wording in the
story.
Sincerely,
Martin Baron
Editor
The Boston Globe
4. The Boston Globe zamieszcza sprostowanie w wydaniu w dniu 9 maja 2006:
A Page One story Sunday about records of Nazi atrocities in World War II referred to events at Polish death camps. The death camps in Poland, which was occupied by Germany during the war, were created and controlled by Nazis.
5. W korespondencji emailowej konsul generalny nalega na zamieszczenie listu.
Email: 05/10/2006 03:22
Dear Mr. Baron,
I do appreciate your prompt reply and the info that the clarification has
been published in print and on the BG's website. However, I think I may
expect publication of my letter on the op-ed pages, in the
letters-to-the-editor section. Journalists' stories are long and visible
whereas clarifications reach much smaller fractions of readers. As you now
know, in my letter I did my best to present the harmful consequences of a
misuse of merely one single word. The Holocaust eyewitness generation is
inevitably passing away. Therefore we must not allow new stereotypes and
cliches form and infect the people who might not know next to nothing about
the cruel times of World War Two, the unprecedented tragedy of Jews as well
as the suffering of many other nations. But these stereotypes, in most of
the cases unintentionally, are being formed. We read about the "Polish
death camps" every now and then. Therefore I always kindly insist on making
my message (in my official capacity but also personal and emotional)
available to the readership of the newspaper which incidentally used this
kind of unprecise wording.
Sincerely yours,
Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk
Consul General of the Republic of Poland
Counsellor – Minister
From: baron@globe.com [mailto:baron@globe.com]
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 4:21 PM
To: Consul General
Subject: RE: Letter from Consul General of Poland in New York
Dear Consul General Kasprzyk:
I will forward this to the letters editor. He reviewed it once and
determined that a correction or clarification was the more suitable
approach. I'll invite him to take another look.
While the story was lengthy, the phrase that drew your objection
represented a tiny fraction of the piece. Corrections and clarifications
are our customary method for dealing with matters such as these.
However, the letters editor operates independently of me, reporting instead
to the editor of the editorial pages. He can make his own determination.
His name is Matthew Bernstein, and I'll copy him on this note.
Sincerely,
Martin Baron
Editor
The Boston Globe
From: Consul General
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 4:54 PM
To: baron@globe.com
Subject: RE: Letter from Consul General of Poland in New York
Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for your explanation and the flavour of professional integrity it is filled with. As a former journalist (17 years in Poland and in the U.S.) I particularly appreciate it.
I understand quite well that my letter relates to a microportion of C. Nickerson's piece. But as I have been trying to say, quite an important and painful issue of historical truth lies behind it. Think about feelings of thousands of your Polish American readers who have already sent us dozens of very emotional e-mails in this matter.
And - don't you think we could avoid in the future similar lapses if the wording like "Polish death/concentration/annihilation camps" would get included into The Boston Globe stylebook ? This is where we finally landed in January with The New York Times after they had used the same misleading phrase.
Finally, "beyond the protocol", please accept my congratulations for running the excellent newspaper. I have been the Globe's reader for years and its quality remains the top worldclass.
Thank you for your time, too.
Sincerely,
Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk
Consul General of the Republic of Poland
Counsellor - Minister
6. The Boston Globe publikuje skrócony list konsula generalnego w wydaniu z dnia 14 maja 2006.
. "Poland defamed with one word”
..... Your article ''Files uncover Nazis' trail of death" (Page A1, May 7)
would be without blemish if not for the wording ''Polish death camps" in one
of the paragraphs. You certainly must agree that this phrase, through which
the reporter may have tried to refer to the camps on the Polish territory
occupied then by the Third Reich of Nazi Germany, is very ambiguous. For
years we have continued fighting this false simplification, or ''mental
shortcut," which takes the blame off German Nazism and puts it on others.We
have been doing it to pay homage to 6 million citizens of the occupied
Poland murdered by the insanity of Hitler and his henchmen: 3 million Polish
Jews and 3 million Polish Christians. It is documented, for example, that
the so-called Auschwitz I camp was initially built by Germans to annihilate
the cream of the crop of Poland. It was only after the Wannsee conference
that they extended it to create the death complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau,
which was to methodically exterminate the Jews of Europe.The subject here is
one innocent adjective: ''Polish." But this short word may denote putting
the blame for the most atrocious crime of genocide in human history on a
wrong nation. .....
Krzysztof W. Kasprzyk
Consul General of Poland in New York
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
III: 1. The Boston Globe 26 czerwca 2006 publikuje ponizszy artykul:Brighton, Lynn parishes close
Shutterings met with protest, tears
BOSTON GLOBE
By Matt Viser and Shawntaye Hopkins, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent | June 26, 2006
LYNN -- After an emotional 90-minute service yesterday, about two dozen parishioners at Saint Michael the Archangel Parish staged an impromptu protest, refusing for four hours to leave the sanctuary as they sat in pews and prayed.
After the air conditioning was turned off, and with a half-dozen police officers standing guard so no one could enter the church or deliver food to protesters, the sit-in ended.
The 100-year-old church, which had become a second home to many Polish-Americans, was one of two churches the Archdiocese of Boston closed yesterday as a late part of the contentious parish closings process that began in 2004 and that has included 64 parishes. The closings have prompted numerous vigils and church occupations, several of which are ongoing.
Yesterday's protest, for which the Council of Parishes provided advice and a few protesters, had the makings of another long-term protest, but was short-circuited by poor planning, members acknowleged.
The protesters in Lynn began organizing late last week, but there was no organized signup lists or food set aside, as there had been at other such vigils.
The involvement of the Council of Parishes, an alliance of people who are unhappy with the closings, who have been involved extensively in other protests, led archdiocesan officials to criticize it as having been staged from the outside.
``As far as we are concerned, this entire closure process has been a disgrace, and we stand ready to assist any parishioners who wish to resist," Peter Borre , a cochairman of the Council of Parishes, said in a telephone interview. ``If that makes us outside agitators, so be it."
But with police officers standing guard at the door, no one could enter the building to bring food.
In addition, if parishioners left, they would not be let back in.
The Rev. Alfonse Ferreira , who has been overseeing St. Michael's for the past year after their longtime pastor died, prayed with the parishioners and encouraged them to stop their protest. Over the four hours, parishioners and protesters slowly filtered out.
``When you recite the Lord's Prayer six times and say, `Thy will be done,' well, then let [God's] will be done," said Edward Koza , who was parish organist for 18 years and who was among the protesters for about two hours. ``If this is God's will, so be it."
In Brighton, about 300 people filed out of St. Gabriel Church, weeping and hugging one another as their church also closed.
``I was married here," said Katie Maye , 48, of Andover. ``I thought it was going to stay here forever."
The Rev. John L. Doyle , who led the church's Spanish-language Mass and learned of the closing only last week, said the timing had surprised many parish members. St. Gabriel, owned by and located adjacent to Caritas St. Elizabeth's Medical Center, had been on the brink of closing for months, but parishioners learned only last week that it would close yesterday.
``It's very difficult and very challenging for parishioners to see their church close," Kevin Shea , a spokesman for the archdiocese, said in a telephone interview. ``However, the important thing is that the parish will continue in their new homes."
Parishioners from St. Gabriel are encouraged to attend St. Columbkille Parish, the last surviving Catholic church in Brighton.
A Spanish-language Mass will also be said at St. Columbkille.
Parishioners from St. Michael are encouraged to attend nearby Sacred Heart Parish, though many said they would attend Polish-language services in Salem or in South Boston.
Throughout the service at St. Michael's, women took out well-worn tissues and men removed their glasses to wipe their eyes.
Some stared straight ahead, with jaws clenched and stern looks on their faces. Many parishioners pinned red-and-white ribbons, symbolizing the colors of the Polish flag, on their lapels.
``I got married here. My kids were baptized here," said John Kuks , a 49-year-old plumber from Wakefield. ``It's very sad, but what can you do?"
When Kuks immigrated from Poland in 1983, the pastor of St. Michael's met him at Logan International Airport.
The church provided an apartment for him to live in for six months. Church members helped him find his first job. They helped him learn English. And his children learned about Polish culture at the church's school.
Tears came to his eyes as he said that now that he knows English, he will begin attending Mass at a nearby parish, and will go to a Polish Mass in South Boston only on special holidays.
``When you move away from home, this is the most comfortable place," said Dorota Kazimierczyk , a 31-year-old resident of Lynn who immigrated from Poland eight years ago and who still says all her prayers in Polish.
``This was a home away from home,"Kazimierczyk said of her lost parish.
After the service, several items were removed from the parish, including the birth, death, and marriage records, a painting of Mary, and a small container of soil from a Polish concentration camp.
``Now in Poland, they're building churches, they're growing," said Malqorzata Perkowska , a 40-year-old Topsfield resident who immigrated from Poland 12 years ago. ``We come here, and they're closing."
The archdiocese has announced that on June 30, it is closing St. Mary in Georgetown and St. Mary in Rowley.
It will replace them with one parish, also called St. Mary. In Newton, the archdiocese is replacing two parishes, Corpus Christi and St. Bernard, with one, Corpus Christi-St. Bernard, on July 1.
Matt Viser can be reached at maviser@globe.com.
2. Z-ca konsula generalnego M. Skulimowski 7 lipca wysyla ponizszy email do red. naczelnego The Boston Globe:
To Martin D. Baron
Editor –in-chief
The Boston Globe
Dear Mr. Baron
Reading The Boston Globe makes me feel that this mainstream newspaper
stubbornly misinterprets or even manipulates with the tragic history of
Holocaust.
I was appalled to read the second time within barely two months an article
including the erroneous phrase “Polish concentration camp” in historically
unrelated text by Matt Viser and Shawntaye Hopkins, Globe staff and
correspondent, published on June 26th 2006, titled: “Brighton, Lynn
parishes close - Shutterings met with protest, tears” – see below.
Since the problem seems to be deeply rooted in the Globe’ editorial staff's
practices, or perhaps openly ignored, I do insist on making a proper entry
in the Boston Globe’s style book, and once and for all incorporating into
your internal guidelines and editors' advisories a directive that the
phrase "Polish death/concentration camps" is unacceptable and to be
avoided.
Frankly speaking, your valuable readers deserve the truth, but not
mistaken or misinterpreted history of the second world war, I would
appreciate publishing an appropriate correction.
Sincerely,
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of the Republic of Poland
Attachments:
- copy the article "Brighton, Lynn parishes close, Shutterings met with
protest, tears" - June 26th 2006
- copy of the previous article" Files uncover Nazis' trail of death,
Entries cast horrors in mundane detail" May 7th 2006
- Consul General's letter to the editor-in-chief May 9th 2006
3. Odpowiedz red. naczelnego M. Barona na email z-cy konsula generalnego:
Dear Deputy Consul Skulimowski:
I will raise this with those who oversee our copy desk.
Just as it's possible that within the Polish government not everyone
adheres strictly to all written policy provisions every day and in every
instance, it's possible for missteps to occur within our newsroom, with a
sizable staff, as well. Thousands of words appear in our paper every day.
Stories originate in a variety of ways, and are edited by different editors
at different times of the day. Unfortunately, errors are made. Writing
something into a stylebook, or even running a correction, does not always
preclude the possibility of similar error in the future.
While I reject your unwarranted allegation that there is a "deeply rooted"
problem at the Globe or that policies are openly ignored, we will do our
best to make sure this phrasing is not repeated.
Sincerely,
Martin Baron
Editor
The Boston Globe
4. The Boston Globe 8 lipca zamieszcza sprostowanie:
July 8, 2006
Clarification: A story in the June 26 City & Region section on parishes closing in Brighton and Lynn referred to a ``Polish concentration camp." The concentration camps in Poland, which was occupied by Germany during the war, were created and controlled by Nazis.
5. Podziekowanie Konsulatu pozostawione bez odpowiedzi:
Dear Mr. Baron
Thank you for prompt clarification in Saturday issue of the Boston Globe and
I hope your staff will receive proper instructions and a brief historical
background. Including the phrase into the style book will certainly be a
step forward to reduce the possibility of similar errors in the future.
Media errors are incomparable to ones of any other public institutions, as
they hurt millions and mislead millions especially when such a sensitive
issue, as Holocaust, is touched.
Please do accept our readiness to assist the Globe in spreading the
knowledge of the Second World War history in forms of lectures or
journalists' visits to Poland, so the editors could face the sites
symbolizing the darkest days of the twentieth century and well as learn more
about Poland's history and culture.
Looking forward to our mutual cooperation on the issue.
Sincerely,
Marek Skulimowski
Deputy Consul General of the Republic of Poland