To which the refrain is heard: good luck.
The Detroit Free Press ran an article by David Ashenfelter, Holocaust Justice Hits A Wall: Exile or mercy for old Nazi guards?
The well written article discusses the government’s case against three persons believed to have been Nazi guards at concentration camps and the question of whether or not they should be deported.
The single sticking point was a photo by Eric Seals, of the Detroit Free Press, which was included with the article.
The CTV, NY Times, and others have recently set an editorial policy regarding references to Poland and the Holocaust. Writers may not refer to Nazi German Concentration Camps in occupied Poland as —Polish Concentration Camps.— Such references were quite common and improperly portrayed Poland as either supportive of, or complicit in, Nazi German atrocities.
Mr. Seals’ photo, a cropped picture taken at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, indicates Poland Murdered: 3,001,000. The area in which the picture was taken indicates the Nazi death toll by country.
The photo, as presented, falls within the same editorial policy. Photos, or at least their captions, should accurately portray the facts of the situation being portrayed.
Several people have written to the articles’ author, Mr. Ashenfelter, requesting a correction to the photo’s caption clarifying the fact that Poland did not murder 3 million plus people.
LZ, a member of the Polish American Forum group wrote to Mr. Ashenfelter as follows:
The article was very good, it is the picture that is disturbing. Poland did not murder 3,001,000 Jews. The German Third Reich murdered over six million Jews, Slavs and Gypsies. I relize [sic] that the photo can be taken out of context. I know that it tells that 3,001,000 Jews were murdered in Poland. Your average reader will not realize this.
Is it possible to correct this?
Mr. Ashenfelter’s reply follows:
The photo was taken in front of a wall at the Holocaust Memorial.
Are you suggesting that the Holocaust Memorial folks got their numbers wrong about the people who died in Poland?
David Ashenfelter
Federal Court Reporter
Detroit Free Press
600 W. Fort St.
Detroit, MI 48226
Office: 313-223-4490
Fax: 313-222-5981
Mr. Ashenfelter missed the point completely. As Bozena Urbanowicz-Gilbride, a Polish Catholic Holocaust survivor recently stated in a speech at St. Frances de Chantal R.C. Church in Wantagh, New York:
—Every Jew a victim but not every victim a Jew—
Ms. Urbanowicz-Gilbride presents an accurate description of the Holcaust. Every Jew was a victim because every Jew was marked for death, based solely on their ethnicity and/or religion. Every person killed was a victim as well, and often times they were marked for death based solely on their ethnicity (Roma) or based on who they were (homosexual, mentally retarded).
…and yes Mr. Ashenfelter, the numbers as portrayed on the wall are inaccurate in that they only reflect half the deaths in Nazi occupied Poland. The total number of Poles (Christians, Jews, Roma, etc.) killed exceeded 6 million, which the Holocaust Museum fully recognizes (it places the Holocaust death toll at 11 million).
But that’s not the point. People were politely requesting that the photo’s caption be clarified so that no one is misled into believing the people of or government of Poland killed 3+ million people. Not all too difficult, unless of course you don’t care.
Mr. Ashenfelter, if you are at a loss for words try this:
…stands before a representation of the number of Polish Jews murdered in Nazi German concentration camps and elsewhere in occupied Poland.
I’ll even let you use it without attribution.