(JTA) — A Polish government minister supported calls for a “Polocaust” museum to tell the story of non-Jewish Poles killed by the Nazis.
Deputy Culture Minister Jaroslaw Sellin offered his support on Tuesday for such a museum in an interview with state media amid already strained relations between Poland and Israel, and world Jewry, over its recently passed Holocaust law criminalizing claims that the Polish nation or state is responsible for Nazi crimes.
The Nazis murdered nearly 2 million Poles during World War II and about 3 million Polish Jews.
“I think that the story of the fate of the Poles during World War II, in the first phase — the destruction of our country by the Nazis and Soviets — and the second phase, when our country was under total occupation — deserves to be told and that the world should see this horrific loss,” Sellin told Poland’s Radio One, CNN reported.
Sellin was referring to a suggestion for such a museum by writer and scholar Marek Kochan in the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita, Reuters reported, although the term “Polokaust” has been used on some Polish Twitter accounts since at least 2012.
It is not clear if Sellin’s support for a Polocaust museum means that one will be created. Poland runs a Museum of World War II.
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