Poland Will Summon US Ambassador Over FBI Director James Comey’s Holocaust Comments

(Reuters) -- Poland will summon the U.S. ambassador in Warsaw over an article authored by a top U.S. intelligence official on Poland’s alleged responsibility for the Holocaust during World War II, a foreign-ministry representative said Sunday. The article by FBI Director James B. Comey, published in the Washington Post last week, prompted an outcry in Poland and drew condemnation in the media and from politicians.

The foreign-ministry representative said via his Twitter account that the U.S. ambassador would be summoned to the ministry over the article, and that Poland would demand an apology.

Comey’s article in the Washington Post said: “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.”

Poland said the passage wrongly implied it was complicit in the Nazi genocide of European Jews.

Poland’s ambassador to the U.S. said in a statement the remarks were “unacceptable,” adding he had sent a letter to Comey “protesting the falsification of history, especially ... accusing Poles of perpetuating crimes which not only they did not commit, but which they themselves were victims of.”

Poland is one of the closest European allies of the U.S., and bilateral relations have been strengthened by the conflict in Ukraine and related tensions with Russia. Polish politicians have repeatedly called for an increased American military presence in the region.

(Reporting by Wiktor Szary; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)