While awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski on May 29, Barack Obama stated that the honoree, a messenger for the Polish resistance during World War II, witnessed Jews being murdered in a “Polish death camp” and delivered that information to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It was Germans who ran the concentration camp, and the Polish political elite took offense at the remark. Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski called it “ignorance and incompetence,” and Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusks said, ”we cannot accept such words even if they are spoken by the leader of a friendly power” in a May 30 statement.
Gaffes
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“Polish Death Camp”
Full List
Gaffes
- Romney: 47% of Americans are Entitled Obama Supporters
- “I Don’t Care About the Very Poor.”
- “Ann Drives a Couple of Cadillacs.”
- “After My Election I Have More Flexibility.”
- Biden: “Comfortable” with Gay Marriage
- “Polish Death Camp”
- “The Private Sector Is Doing Fine.”
- “If You’ve Got a Business, You Didn’t Build That.”
- Romney: London Olympic Preparations Were “Disconcerting”
- Biden: Romney “Gonna Put Y’all Back in Chains”
