Mr May stated that last week I said that if the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu appears in Auschwitz – Birkenau at the commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of that German Nazi Concentration and Extermination camp, he will be arrested.  I would expect the Washington Times to provide the source of that quote.  Mr May has failed to do so.  The truth is I never said it.

Poland is indeed the signatory of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and as such is obliged to respect the warrants issued by the ICC, something that Mr May suggests we refuse and reject.  Instead he states that Poland is safe thanks to article 5 of the NATO Treaty.   There is no contradiction here.  I have to stress that Poland adheres to all international agreements, treaties and obligations that she has signed and ratified.  In 2001 when art. 5 of the Washington Treaty was invoked for the first time in history by the United States after the 9/11 attack on the WTC, Poland acted without hesitation. We sent thousands of Polish soldiers to Afghanistan to fight together with our American allies and took responsibility for the Ghazni province.

Finally there is a personal aspect that has to be mentioned.  I have been dealing with Jewish and Israeli matters, in academia and politics since the 1980s.  I have  followed in the footsteps of my father, Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, former prisoner of Auschwitz, Foreign Minister of Poland, Honorary Citizen of Israel, Chairman of the International Auschwitz Council, and until his death a friend of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yours sincerely

Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski
Secretary of State