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Notes -
Well, last week has certainly been busy when it comes to Polish-German relations.
A few days ago, it has come to the public's attention that Felzmann auction house was planning to auction off items looted from concentration and death camp victims: letters, documents, things like that. 623 items in total if I got it right. There's been an outcry, and the auctions have been removed. Now, some people are talking about forcing the auction house, or the "owners" it was acting on behalf of, to restitute the items back to Poland, but I wouldn't expect it to happen.
In general, there's a rather poor track record when it comes to returning art and historical artefacts looted by the Nazi Germany. The Germans established a new arbitration tribunal for that cause this year, and they (non-bindingly) endorse the Washington Principles, but in practice the federal government is trying to stonewall any claims by Poland.
Also, there's a bit of misdirection in the Western media when discussing the situation with the auction house: the items are being described as belonging to "Holocaust victims" and Jewish organizations are quoted (see e.g. CNN). While most of the auctoined items were indeed recovered from the Auschwitz and Majdanek camps, among the 600+ there were some also belonging to, or regarding, Poles (and I mean not even Polish Jews, ethnic Poles). Which brings me to my second point: history policy.
Broadly speaking, the German historical policy is to portray Nazi aggression as uniquely affecting the Jewish population, and to downplay the megadeaths suffered by the Polish one, to better insulate from possible claims by the Polish gov this way. The Polish historical policy is basically nonexistent. While the Germans managed to successfully control the frame and try to slowly absolve themselves generation after generation (see e.g. some German politician telling Trump that "Germans were the first victims of national socialism"), there is no one enforcing such frame control here, so self-hating Polish libs and progressives are eager to employ WWII both-sideism and try and drag as much responsibility for the holocaust on Poland as possible.
And that drive to self-debasement sometimes results in a very (darkly) funny situations: also last week, a film appeared on Polish state TV's VOD service. Among Neigbhors, a documentary from last year, where in WWII animated flashback scenes demonic Poles with glowing red eyes hunt down the hiding Jews, and in the ruins of 1944 Warsaw heroic German soldiers aid them. Twenty years ago, this reversal was being mocked in a satirical strip ("Herr German, strike the Jew, now!"), and now 2025 discourse is finally approaching 2006 satire.
(Also this week, I've learned that in 1991, Helmut Kohl's government was opposing Polish access to NATO, for reasons that largely echo current Ukraine's - that it would be "taunting" Russia. Plus ca change.)
Who said this?
I don’t know what your media produces, but no one here thinks the poles committed the holocaust, and even you merely accuse the germans of minimizing the poles as victims in favour of the jews, not make them the perpetrators. This controversy and the related one about the ‘polish camps’ sounds like the poles are hallucinating an offense to get angry about.
Are you implying that this unremarkable position is equivalent to the molotov-ribbentrop pact? Or that germany failed ukraine somehow? Since 1990 the germans have been nothing but friends, allies and financial supporters of the poles.
While putting full or even equal responsibility on Poles would be ridiculous, it is also an historic fact that Poles (e.g. Armia Krajowa) were not exactly friendly to Jews and committed various atrocities (not at the level the Nazis did). Example: https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/1946-us-document-reveals-poles-treated-jews-as-badly-as-germans-did-543940 (I don't necessarily agree with the title, but it contains some evidence to that) So the claim underlying the offense is real, and that's something the Poles, understandably, are not very happy to discuss. Bit it's a part of history too. It doesn't remove any responsibility from the Germans, there is a lot of blame for everybody to get their part.
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...and the German answers "nein, nein, bitte" ("no no please don't make me"). Really top notch comic
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