Image copyright AFP Image caption The Nazis ran death camps in Poland during the brutal 1939-45 occupation 
 
 Poland has summoned the US ambassador and demanded an apology over comments on the Holocaust by FBI director James Comey. 
 
 The foreign ministry said Mr Comey had suggested in a Washington Post article that some Poles were accomplices. 
 
 After the summons US envoy Stephen Mull said he made it clear the US believed "Nazi Germany alone" was responsible. 
 
 Six million Polish citizens were killed by the Nazis during World War Two, half of them Jewish. 
 
 'Falsification of history' 
 
 In the Washington Post article on Thursday, aimed at raising education about the Holocaust, Mr Comey wrote: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. 
 
 "They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do." 
 
 The words sparked a storm of protest in Poland. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption James Comey made the comments in a Washington Post article on Thursday 
 
 President Bronislaw Komorowski told Polish television the comments were an "insult to thousands of Poles who helped Jews". 
 
 Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz said: "To those who are incapable of presenting the historic truth in an honest way, I want to say that Poland was not a perpetrator but a victim of World War Two. I would expect full historical knowledge from officials who speak on the matter." 
 
 Ambassador Mull, who on Sunday attended ceremonies marking the 72nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis, said that any suggestion that "Poland, or any other countries other than Nazi Germany, bear responsibility for the Holocaust, is a mistake, harmful and insulting". 
 
 After Sunday's summons he added: "I made clear that the opinion that Poland is in any way responsible for the Holocaust is not the position of the United States. 
 
 "Nazi Germany alone bears responsibility. I now have a lot of work before me to make things right in this situation." 
 
 But Mr Mull also said he believed the wider message of the article was that many people had either aided the Nazis or not done enough in response to the atrocities, including in the US. 
 
 The Washington Post on Sunday published a column criticising Mr Comey's comments. 
 
 The Nazis ran death camps in Poland during the brutal 1939-45 occupation. 
 
 Correction 20 April 2015: In an earlier version of this report, comments made by the Polish ambassador to Washington were incorrectly attributed to Stephen Mull. ||||| FBI Director James Comey (Cliff Owen/Associated Press) 
 
 The Polish ambassador to Washington has protested, the Polish president has protested, the speaker of the Polish parliament (to whom I am married) has protested — and the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw has apologized profusely. Why? Because James Comey, the director of the FBI, in a speech that was reprinted in The Post arguing for more Holocaust education, demonstrated just how badly he needs it himself. 
 
 In two poorly worded sentences, he sounded to Polish readers as if he were repeating the World War II myth that most drives them crazy: Namely, that somehow, those who lived in occupied Eastern Europe shared full responsibility for a German policy. Comey put it like this: 
 
 “In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do.” 
 
 There are a number of problems with that pair of weak sentences, starting with the vast difference between Germany and the rest. During the war, Germany had a state policy of exterminating the Jews. This policy involved not “accomplices” but hundreds of bureaucrats, tens of thousands of soldiers, train schedules and plans. Germany also encouraged the creation of collaborationist governments in other countries – Vichy France, for example – some of which used their own police officers to send their Jewish citizens into the German death camps. 
 
 Germany also occupied Poland, but there was no Polish “Vichy.” During the war, there was no Polish state at all. Indeed, it was the absence of the Polish state that enabled the Germans to create a lawless, violent world, one in which anyone could be arbitrarily murdered, any Jew could be deported — and any Pole who helped a Jew could be shot instantly, along with his entire family. Many were. Millions of others died too – Polish intellectuals, priests and politicians were all Nazi targets. 
 
 In the course of the war, most of Poland’s infrastructure, industry and architecture were destroyed. In that atmosphere, many people were frightened by or indifferent to the fate of the Jews, and some murdered in order to avoid being murdered. But that doesn’t mean that “in their minds” they “didn’t do something evil.” 
 
 Although the circumstances were different, Germany’s leading role is equally clear in Hungary. The wartime government of Adm. Miklós Horthy did pass anti-Semitic legislation and did align itself with the Nazis. But the mass murder and deportation of the Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz began only in March 1944, when that government dissolved and was replaced with a straightforward German occupation. Once the Hungarian state had been dissolved, in other words, Hungary also became a lawless, violent zone where anything was possible. 
 
 So no, it is not true, as Comey made it sound, that “murderers and accomplices” in Germany, Poland and Hungary and lots of other places were somehow responsible for the Holocaust. And no, it isn’t true that the Holocaust is a story of so many otherwise “good” people who “convinced themselves it was the right thing to do.” 
 
 On the contrary, it’s a story about the power of fear, the danger of lawlessness and the horror that was made possible by a specific form of German state terror in the years between 1939 and 1945 – a terror that convinced many people to do things that they knew were terribly, terribly wrong. If the FBI director wants to take some lessons from Washington’s excellent Holocaust museum, that’s very admirable. But first he should make sure he’s understood what he’s seen. ||||| Israeli Ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, standing left, speaks during a eremony markjng the 13th International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust, at the Monument to the Heroes... (Associated Press) 
 
 Israeli Ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari, standing left, speaks during a eremony markjng the 13th International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the victims of the Holocaust, at the Monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski) (Associated Press) 
 
 WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The United States asked Poland to rethink plans to enact proposed legislation regulating Holocaust speech that has sparked a diplomatic dispute with Israel, arguing Wednesday that if it passes it could hurt freedom of speech as well as strategic relationships. 
 
 U.S. State Department spokeswoman Neather Nauert voiced her government's concerns as the Polish Senate was preparing to approve the bill, a step that would put it closer to becoming law. The measure would next need to be signed into law by the president, who supports it. 
 
 Poland's conservative ruling Law and Justice party authored the bill, which calls for up to three years in prison for any intentional attempt to falsely attribute the crimes of Nazi Germany to the Polish state or people. 
 
 Law and Justice says it is fighting against the use of phrases like "Polish death camps" to refer to death camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II. 
 
 Israel, however, sees the move as an attempt to whitewash the role some Poles played in the killing of Jews during World War II. 
 
 Nauert said the U.S. understands that phrases like "Polish death camps" are "inaccurate, misleading, and hurtful" but voiced concern the legislation could "undermine free speech and academic discourse." 
 
 "We are also concerned about the repercussions this draft legislation, if enacted, could have on Poland's strategic interests and relationships — including with the United States and Israel. The resulting divisions that may arise among our allies benefit only our rivals," Nauert said. 
 
 "We encourage Poland to reevaluate the legislation in light of its potential impact on the principle of free speech and on our ability to be effective partners." 
 
 Nauert's statement came only days after U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Warsaw, where he paid respects to Jewish and Polish victims of the war on International Holocaust Remembrance Day. 
 
 Earlier Wednesday, a U.S. congressional task force on combatting anti-Semitism said it was "alarmed" by the legislation and called on Polish President Andrzej Duda to veto it. 
 
 "We are deeply concerned that this legislation could have a chilling effect on dialogue, scholarship, and accountability in Poland about the Holocaust, should this legislation become law," the bipartisan group said. 
 
 The Poland-Israel dispute, which erupted over the weekend, has elicited bitter recriminations on both sides. Some Israelis have accused the mostly Catholic Poles of being driven by anti-Semitism and of trying to deny the Holocaust. Poles believe they are being defamed by being linked to German crimes of which they were one of the largest group of victims. 
 
 The lower house of the Polish parliament approved the bill Friday, a day before International Holocaust Remembrance Day, timing also criticized as insensitive. 
 
 Members of Poland's Jewish community weighed in Wednesday, saying in an open letter that they strongly oppose usage of the phrase "Polish death camps," but also oppose the law. 
 
 "As eyewitnesses as well as descendants of the Jewish men and women murdered in the Holocaust, we object to this mendacious expression," they wrote. "What we cannot, however, agree to are provisions which impose prison sentences for the use of an expression." 
 
 ___ 
 
 Associated Press writers Monika Scislowska in Warsaw, Randy Herschaft in New York and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
– Angry Polish leaders have demanded an apology from the US ambassador after some ill-judged remarks on the Holocaust from FBI Director James Comey. "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil," Comey wrote in a Washington Post column. "They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do." Many Poles are infuriated by the suggestion they shared the blame for Nazi crimes, reports the BBC, which notes that around 6 million Polish citizens died during the 1939-45 occupation. "Poland was not a perpetrator but a victim of World War II," says Prime Minister Ewa Kopacz. "I would expect full historical knowledge from officials who speak on the matter." The American ambassador in Warsaw says suggestions that any country other than "Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust are wrong, harmful, and offensive," adding that he thinks Comey's wider message was that there were people, even in the US, who "aided the Nazi criminals, or there were people who did not respond sufficiently," reports Reuters. In another Washington Post column, Anne Applebaum writes that it's wrong to call Poles "accomplices" because after the 1939 invasion of Poland, it was Germans who created "a lawless, violent world, one in which anyone could be arbitrarily murdered, any Jew could be deported—and any Pole who helped a Jew could be shot instantly, along with his entire family. Many were."