The Guardian Editors
London, 22 July 2017
Dear Sirs,
I feel I have to react in very strong terms to the article “William and
Kate have been duped into endorsing Poland’s ugly nationalism” (21.07)
relating to the recent visit of Their Royal Highnesses to Poland. I
respect everyone’s right to express his or her political opinions but I
cannot accept using historical distortions and free interpretation of
facts to support claims which are simply not true.
Kate Maltby suggests, mixing in the article her own opinions with quotes
of the LSE historian Prof Anita Prazmowska, that the Polish authorities
chose Stutthof over Auschwitz as the Royal destination on purpose
because the first memorial would demonstrate better the “Polish
martyrdom”, in contrast to Auschwitz as an “uncomfortably prominent site
of Jewish suffering”. First of all, I would like to emphasise that the
decision to visit Gdañsk and Northern part of Poland where Stutthof is
located, as well as the other sites in Warsaw, was entirely at
Kensington Palace’s discretion. The Polish side was obviously consulted
but didn’t wish to nor could impose its suggestions regarding the royal
programme. Since Kate Maltby clearly doesn’t know much about the history
of the German Nazi concentration camps, it is worth remembering that in
contrast to what she writes, both Stutthof and Auschwitz were set up
initially as camps for ethnic Poles. It was only after the plan of the
final solution was gradually introduced during the WWII that both camps
become sites of mass extermination, where killing tools on the mass
scale, such as murdering prisoners in gas chambers by means of Cyclone
B, where introduced. It is true that Auschwitz became the world’s symbol
of the Holocaust but it doesn’t mean the suffering of the victims at the
other camps of extermination - prisoners both of Polish and Jewish or of
any others’ ethnicity, doesn’t deserve equal respect and commemorating.
Suggesting that the Stutthof memorial doesn’t deserve a royal visit is
simply outrageous and disrespectful towards its victims. So is mocking
the Warsaw uprising fighters, as “doomed from the beginning”. That is
what we know now after thorough historical research. The insurgents at
the time certainly didn’t have enough
information to understand how tragic their situation was. They believed
that their fight wouldn’t last long and they would be helped by the
approaching Red Army, but as we know, the Russians chose to stop their
offensive on the other side of Vistula river and wait till the Poles had
bled themselves to death. The insurgents certainly couldn’t know that
the Soviets wouldn’t even allow RAF aircrafts carrying help to the
people of Warsaw to land on the territory controlled by the Red Army. It
is also a part of the history many don’t want to remember. But even if
some might think the decision of starting the uprising was historically
wrong, no person of good will would deny the heroism and the courage of
the Warsaw insurgents. People fighing for their freedom and dignity
deserve the highest respect and the Warsaw Rising Museum certainly
deserved the visit by Their Royal Highnesses, for which we are very
grateful. I am astonished that Kate Maltby doesn’t understand such
elementary human values.
If these outrageous claims weren’t enough, Kate Maltby suggests Poland
conducts “the state-sponsored Holocaust denial”, supporting these
accusations with the information about manipulating school textbooks and
an alleged “new laws that ban publicly insulting the Polish nation”.
There is not enough space in this letter to respond in detail to such
outrageous claims but I can only say that the author is completely
ill-informed as there is no such a law in force in Poland. So nobody
could be “harassed”, Jan Gross included, as a result of this law. There
is a proposed bill which aims at penalizing attributing crimes committed
by Nazi Germany to the Polish State (which did not exist at the time),
or to the Polish Nation. But it does not prohibit discussing crimes
committed either by individuals or groups of ethnic Poles. The bill is
being now consulted with Jewish organizations in Poland.
I don’t deny the author’s right to have her own views on the political
situation in Poland, even though I don’t share in them, but playing down
the suffering of the Stutthof’s prisoners or of the Warsaw uprising’s
victims, just to prove the author’s preconceived thesis, is simply
disgraceful. Those people deserve as much respect as the other victims
of the German Nazi terror. No one’s suffering is better or worst. And
certainly both memorials – the Stutthof and the Warsaw Risining Museum
deserved the royal visit and its victims, being commemorated by TRHs. I
think Kate Maltby should be truly ashamed of her words and apologize to
the former prisoners of Stutthof, and veterans of the Warsaw uprising.
As for the accusations of “the state-sponsored Holocaust denial”, this
ungrounded and false claim is of such gravity that I can assure you that
the relevant Polish body will take appropriate legal actions.
The Polish Ambassador
Arkady Rzegocki