The US ambassador to Poland apologized for the FBI directors comments about Poles being accomplices in the Holocaust.
Stephen Mull said Monday, April 20, that FBI director James Comey was not speaking for the US government when he accused Poles and Hungarians of complicity in Nazi atrocities during a speech April 14 at a benefit for the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, Fox News reported.
Comeys speech was published April 16 in the Washington Post with the headline Why I require FBI agents to visit the Holocaust Museum.
Any suggestion that “Poland or any other countries other than Nazi Germany bear responsibility for the Holocaust is a mistake, harmful and insulting,” Mull said Monday. “Nazi Germany alone bears responsibility.
Read and comment on related IJN blog posting, “Was FBI director Comey wrong?“
Comeys speech spurred Polands Foreign Ministry to demand an apology on Sunday.
This statement is offensive to Poles, for the memory of the victims of the Nazi occupation of Poland and a profound ignorance of the history of this period, said Polands ambassador to the US, Ryszard Schnepf, adding that Comey was accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of.
Hungary’s Foreign Ministry also voiced objection to the remarks in a note of protest to the US Embassy in Budapest.
Hungary “rejects stereotypes and allegations against Hungary and the Hungarian people,” the Budapest-based Foreign Ministry said in an email on Monday, adding that Comey’s remarks showed “incredible insensitivity and unacceptable superficiality, Bloomberg News reported.
