In a joint letter, institute director Karol Madaj and the director's plenipotentiary for Polish-German dialogue, Hanna Radziejowska, said Zeitklicks' presentation of the Holocaust of Polish Jews contained "significant inaccuracies."
They criticized the material for using "the often criticized and misleading phrase 'Polish concentration camps'." German extermination and concentration camps on occupied Polish territory "were created, organized and run exclusively by Nazi Germany," they wrote.
Madaj and Radziejowska also rejected the suggestion that the extermination of nearly 90% of Polish Jews could be attributed to Polish antisemitism or Catholicism, saying such claims "are not confirmed either by history or by scholarship."
They argued that the main causes were German occupation terror, a state-organized and systematic extermination carried out by the Nazi regime, and the fact that pre-war Poland had the world's second-largest Jewish community, which for the Nazis represented a significant logistical advantage in implementing their genocidal plans.
Stressing the importance of conveying history accurately and of good Polish-German relations, the authors offered Zeitklicks' editors expert support in checking historical content.
The contested material, titled "Why were there so many camps in the East?", states that most National Socialist extermination camps "were located on the territory of Poland."
The article also says that "antisemitism in Poland was widespread, because Poland was a very Catholic country and Catholics often did not like Jews," adding that "it was easy for the National Socialists to take action here against the Jewish population."
Zeitklicks is a German history-focused educational portal that aims to bring the history of Germany and Europe closer to younger audiences. Thousands of school pupils in Germany use its materials.
(jh)
Source: PAP