The opposition in Poland has called on Barbara Nowacka, education minister in the Polish Government led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk, to resign over her remark about Auschwitz having been built by “Polish Nazis”.
Nowacka has apologised and claimed her remark on January 27 was a “slip of the tongue”, despite the fact that a video recording of her speech showed her reading from a script. She did not appear to attempt to correct the statement at the time.
The minister’s comment was made in Kraków at an international conference to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
During her speech, Nowacka said: “In territory occupied by Germany, Polish Nazis built what were at first labour camps but later became camps for mass extermination.”
That caused a storm in Polish traditional and social media, forcing Nowacka to apologise several hours after the event.
Tu dłuższy fragment. Ona to przeczytała bez wahania, bez poprawiania się. Dwa wnioski:
1) to właśnie miała napisane na kartce,
2) to co przeczytała, w żaden sposób jej nie zaskoczyło. pic.twitter.com/wOuYDqLigH— Zygfryd Czaban (@CDzwoni) January 28, 2025
The opposition Conservatives (PiS) called for her to resign or be dismissed from the government.
PiS MEP Piotr Muller wrote on X: “Sorry but if you are reading from a script at an event which is being watched by the whole world you cannot claim a slip of the tongue.
“The position of a cabinet minister making such an error is untenable. An apology is not enough. She must go.”
Minister @barbaraanowacka twierdzi, że tylko się przejęzyczyła… a wygląda jakby czytała z kartki 😳
Nawet zakładając jej wersję wydarzeń (choć trudno w to uwierzyć), to akurat na takim stanowisku, w tym czasie i miejscu to absolutnie nie do obrony!
Mówimy o konstytucyjnym… pic.twitter.com/TVwINy5rdv
— Piotr Müller (@PiotrMuller) January 28, 2025
PiS MP Michał Woś added on X: “If she is not forced to resign, Tusk will be giving a green light to such ‘slips of the tongue’ worldwide.”
Questioned about Nowacka’s comment, Tusk claimed clearly she had misspoken and he “was not going to punish people for slips of the tongue for which they were sorry for and did not mean”.
Poland has for decades protested against newspapers and broadcast media outlets outside the country publishing material using the term “Polish death camps”. Auschwitz and other concentration camps were built and run by the German Nazi authorities whose forces had occupied Poland.
In Poland itself any use of the phrase “Polish death camp” has long been considered highly defamatory and is punishable by law. Positive expressions of Nazi ideology is banned.
At the same Auschwitz commemoration event, the British King Charles III made a speech that also caused irritation among some.
That was because he failed to mention Poles among the groups victimised by the Nazis.
Marek Magierowski, Poland’s former ambassador to the US, responded on X: “With all due respect: Mentioning Jews, Sinti, Roma, the LGBT community, disabled people and political prisoners and leaving out Polish victims (among ‘many others’, I presume), just raised my eyebrows.
“And I am doing my utmost to be as diplomatic and as phlegmatic as it gets.”
Under Nazi Germany, some six million Polish citizens perished, half of whom were of Jewish origin, with Auschwitz being the largest single site of their extermination.
