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President Obama wrote a letter to the president of Poland in which he expressed regret for his words during the Medal of Freedom ceremony in which he referred to World War II-era “Polish death camp” instead of a Nazi death camp in Germany-occupied Poland. “In referring to ‘a Polish death camp’ rather than ‘a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland,’ I inadvertently used a phrase that has caused many Poles anguish over the years and that Poland has rightly campaigned to eliminate from public discourse around the world,” President Obama wrote. “I regret the error and agree that this moment...

According to the Wall Street Journal, Polish officials requested that Walesa accept the Medal of Freedom on behalf of Jan Karski, a member of the Polish Underground during World War II who was being honored posthumously this week. The request makes sense. Walesa and Karski shared a burning desire to rid Poland of tyrannical subjugation. But President Obama said no.

President Barack Obama "misspoke" when he called a Nazi facility used to process Jews for execution as a "Polish death camp," a White House official told the news agency AFP. The verbal gaffe came as the president was honoring to a famous Pole, Jan Karski, posthumously awarding him a Presidential Medal of Freedom, the country's highest civilian award. Karski was a resistance fighter who sneaked behind enemy lines to witness the atrocities being committed against Jews. Obama referred to him being smuggled "into the Warsaw ghetto and a Polish death camp to see for himself," ABC OTUS News reported. National...

The president referred to “Polish death camps” while awarding a posthumous Medal of Freedom to Polish professor Jan Karski, a hero of the anti-Nazi resistance. Poles believe they're blamed unfairly for the Nazi Holocaust, and the Foreign Minister led the outrage in a late night tweet. The remark, which barely drew notice in America, is all over the Polish news today. On the country's largest television station:

Poles and Polish-Americans expressed outraged Tuesday at President Obama’s reference earlier that day to “a Polish death camp” — as opposed to a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland. “The White House will apologize for this outrageous error,” Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tweeted. Sikorski said that Polish Prime Minister Donald “Tusk will make a statement in the morning. It’s a pity that this important ceremony was upstaged by ignorance and incompetence.” The president had been trying to honor a famous Pole, awarding a Presidential Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter who sneaked behind enemy lines to bear...

Manhattan corner named for Holocaust hero Associated Press 2009-04-17 05:28 AM A Manhattan street corner has been named after a Polish World War II hero who brought early eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust to the West. Madison Avenue at 37th Street was designated Jan Karski Corner on Thursday. A statue of him stands there, in front of the Polish Consulate. When he died nine years ago in Washington, Karski was a history professor at Georgetown University. Bill Clinton had been one of his students. During the war, Karski was a clandestine Polish government diplomat in exile in London. On a...