At the end of May 2017, a German History textbook "History and events" was found to contain the phrase "polnische Lager" ("Polish camps"). The author of a text on "National-Socialist persecution of Jews" distinguishes a number of stages of that persecution. The last one is the "stage of mass deportations to "Polish camps" and mass physical destruction by shooting and gassing from 1941 to 1945".
Ernst Klett Verlag is a reputable German textbook publisher. The company promptly apologised and explained that the authors did not intend to suggest that the Polish State or Polish civilians had had anything to do with the mass killing of millions of people in the territory of Poland, carried out by the Germans.
– The phrase "Polish camps" will not appear in new textbooks – we read in the publisher’s statement. The Polish embassy in Berlin informed that in cooperation with consular posts, it was going to examine all textbooks in Germany "for defective codes" related to history.
It will be difficult to scrutinise the contents of German History textbooks as their number in that decentralized country exceeds 200. On the initiative of Polish authorities, 70 most popular textbooks will be examined. The work will take at least several months.
