Poland furious at FBI director over Holocaust remarks
WARSAW, Poland - Poland's Foreign Ministry urgently summoned U.S. Ambassador Stephen Mull on Sunday to "protest and demand an apology," saying the FBI director suggested that Poles were accomplices in the Holocaust.
James Comey made the remarks in an article about the Holocaust that was published by The Washington Post on Thursday. It was adapted from a speech he gave Wednesday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
In the Washington Post piece, Comey discusses the power of convincing ourselves of anything. Then he writes: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That's what people do. And that should truly frighten us."
After meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Leszek Soczewica on Sunday, Mull said he will be contacting the FBI. Earlier in the day, Mull said that Comey's words were "wrong, harmful and offensive," and didn't reflect the U.S. administration's views.
Nazi Germany occupied Poland and ran death camps here from 1939-45, killing millions of Jews, Poles and people from other countries.