MOSCOW, January 22. /TASS/. Polish society is well aware of the fact that representatives of many peoples and ethnic groups took part in the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi camp in 1945, the Polish ambassador in Moscow, Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz said on Thursday in a comment on an awkward situation caused by remarks of Foreign Minister Grzegorz Schetyna.
“I’d like to stress definitively and unambiguously a great distance separating our country from the political games around Auschwitz-Birkenau,” Pelczynska-Nalecz said. “The Polish authorities are treating that place, its liberation and the tragedy that unfolded there with utmost seriousness and duly respect.”
“This is a sacred place for us,” she said.
“That’s why we call for avoiding the unnecessary emotional debates, especially on the eve of the 70th anniversary of liberation of the camp and the International Holocaust Day,” Pelczynska-Nalecz said.
“We know perfectly well on the basis of historical facts available to us that the First Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, the soldiers of which opened the gates of Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, had Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, and representatives of other nationalities in its ranks,” Pelczynska-Nalecz said. “Pure Poles were among them, too.”.