POLAND ASKS U.N. TO RENAME AUSCHWITZ

Poland asks UN to rename Auschwitz (JPost)
Poland has asked that the name of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp be changed to "Auschwitz of the former Nazi Germany." In a letter to the UN, Poland asked that maps indicate that Auschwitz, where 1.5 million people, most of them Jews, were put to death, was under German control. The letter stated that "Nazi Germany, and not Poland, was responsible for the mass murder of the Holocaust."

The World Jewish Congress, in response, accused Poland of trying to rewrite history by changing the name of the site, Army Radio reported. "Despite the fact that Auschwitz was built and run by Germans, many of the workers were local Poles," The WJC said in response.

Also in Poland, the head of an ultra-Roman Catholic radio station apologized Wednesday for any offense caused by a recent broadcast that a media watchdog sharply criticized as anti-Semitic. "If somebody felt offended by one of the remarks made by one of the well-known Polish commentators, we are very sorry," Rev. Tadeusz Rydzyk, who heads Radio Maryja, said during a broadcast. "Nobody had any intention of causing anyone any kind of harm or unpleasantness."

More than two weeks ago, commentator Stanislaw Michalkiewicz accused Jews of "trying to force our government to pay extortion money disguised as 'compensation payments"' for property lost during and after World War II. Michalkiewicz referred to such restitution attempts by Jewish groups as the "Holocaust business." Poland's Media Ethics Council subsequently condemned what it termed "very nasty, anti-Semitic language."