It seems everyone is outraged by FBI Director James Corney's comments at the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. DK diarist Village Vet (April 19, 2015) in his/her lead sentence said, "this sort of propaganda (the idea that conquered nations were somehow complicit in the Holocaust) particularly irks me." I was flummoxed at first and had to go beneath the barbed wire to figure out who was saying what.
The Polish people were oppressed just as other Nazi occupied countries were, and as mentioned in the diary, Poland was obliterated as a country. Poland's and Village Vet's outrage seems justified. However, it's a fa r step between "blaming" Poland for the Holcaust and talking about Polish complicity amidst general statements about how good people can do bad things. I wonder whose headline this was; it is unfortunate, if attention grabbing, that it distorts the nature of the Director's offense. I've had French friends who were not old enough to make decisions during WWII AGONIZE over whether they would have supported the Resistance or Vichy (the Nazi-controlled 'government'). This is different from "blaming France for the Occupation:" the French had a choice to be complicit or not. Poland had no choice at all. The Polish people no more bear responsibility for the industrialized killing factories than those who were persecuted, arrested, and killed. Poland has a history of antisemitism, granted (pogroms). And there have been reports that the Poles who lived nearest to Auschwitz did not know about the anniversary of the liberation of the camp. One does have to wonder what the residents at the time thought about the trains going past their towns. But that's another story. Nevertheless, we should be grateful Mr. Corney is in the FBI instead of the CIA, where he'd at least have to know some global geography and history.