US President Barack Obama has expressed regret in a letter to Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski for having mistakenly referred to a Nazi death camp as a “Polish death camp,” an official in Warsaw said on Friday.
Obama's remark at the White House on Tuesday while awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter during the WWII Nazi occupation of Poland, had caused an uproar in Poland and Komorowski wrote to him about the matter.
Polish presidential minister Jaromir Sokolowski on Friday told the Polish Press Agency that Obama had replied, saying he had made a mistake and noting there had been no “Polish death camps.” Rather, places like Auschwitz had been built and operated by Germany's Nazi regime.
Obama also pointed out that Poles had also suffered under the Nazi occupation, and that many had risked their lives to save Jews, Sokolowski said. - Sapa-dpa