The Polish government has demanded that toy producer Mattel recalls a party game and corrects a card that refers to “Nazi Poland,” officials said Friday.
Poles find such language offensive because Poland was never allied with Germany and was in fact subjected to a brutal occupation by Nazi Germany throughout World War II.
Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna said that the Polish embassy in Washington has asked Mattel to withdraw “Apples to Apples,” a game in which players compare different things. In a statement, the embassy said the wording is “completely inconsistent with the historical truth and detrimental to the good name of our country.” The Warsaw government is also using Twitter to call on people to protest the game.
The disputed card is entitled “Schindler’s List” and says: “1993 Steven Spielberg film. Powerful, real-life story of a Catholic businessman who eventually saved over 1,000 Jews in Nazi Poland.”
It was the second incident this week to spark a similar reaction in Poland.
In recent days Polish leaders have also condemned remarks made last week by FBI director James Comey in which he seemed to equate the roles of Poland and Hungary in the Holocaust with that of Germany.
Poles were furious and officials spent days condemning Comey’s remarks. The matter finally calmed down when Comey sent a note to the Polish ambassador in Washington on Wednesday expressing regret for having named any countries alongside Germany.
Language like that used by Mattel and Comey hits a raw nerve because Poles feel that they are repeatedly and unfairly blamed for the German atrocities that were carried out on Polish soil by outsiders who confuse geography with complicity.
In fact, Poles had no role in running the ghettos or the death camps and the Polish state never collaborated with Germany.
However, there were instances of individual Poles who helped the Nazis track down Jews to murder, and cases of mass killings of Jews by Poles during the war and after.
Mattel didn’t immediately respond to calls and emails seeking a comment.
(AP)
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Sorry pole’s dont try to rewrite history. there werent instances of poles giving over the jews to the Germans, the vast majority of poles turned on the jews and gave them up to be slaughtered
My grandparents were rounded up by the murderous Pollacks in the town of Polonka and walked to the forest and shot in a mass grave with their children and other Jews. I never met my grandparents, a”h, but I will always remember that they were murdered during Pesach by the Pollacks who lived in town with them. May they be at peace in Gan Eden. The Torah commands us to remember Amalek. I will never forget. These pollacks want us to forget and wipe the memory from our minds. Never forget what Amalek and its compliars did to us.
They’re trying to sound like they were such victims of the Germans. They aided and abetted with much glee. They don’t deserve to have anything rescinded.