Poland: US envoy nominee to be accepted despite remarks on Holocaust law

WARSAW, Poland — An aide to Poland’s President Andrzej Duda says Friday that if Georgette Mosbacher is appointed as the new US ambassador to Poland, she will be accepted, despite having made “unnecessary and mistaken” comments about the country.

Mosbacher, a businesswoman nominated by US President Donald Trump, attributed the rise of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe to a law passed in Poland in January that criminalizes blaming Poland for Holocaust crimes committed by occupying Nazi Germany. The law drew angry reactions from Israel, which in turn triggered a wave of anti-Semitic rhetoric in Poland.

Warsaw has objected to comments that Mosbacher made Tuesday during a nomination hearing before the U. Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Krzysztof Szczerski says Friday that Duda will officially accept her credentials if she comes to Warsaw as the ambassador of Poland’s close ally.

If Mosbacher is sent to Poland “the president will accept her credentials despite those statements … which we find to be unnecessary and simply mistaken as far as the analysis of the situation goes,” Szczerski said on radio RMF FM.

Szczerski says Mosbacher will have a “much more nuanced opinion, a true opinion” that after she spends some time in Poland.

— AP