US envoy apologises to Poland over FBI chief's Holocaust claim

Warsaw: US ambassador to Warsaw apologised on Sunday after being summoned by the foreign ministry over comments by the head of the FBI that Poland shared responsibility for the Holocaust with Germany.

Poland's President Bronislaw Komorowski said the comments in an opinion piece by FBI director James Comey were an "insult" to Poland.

"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 the April 16 Washington Post article.

After meeting with Poland's deputy foreign affairs minister, US ambassador Stephen Mull told reporters the Nazis bore sole responsibility for the Holocaust, which left six million European Jews dead in World War II.

"I made clear that the opinion that Poland is in any way responsible for the Holocaust is not the position of the United States," Mull said in Polish. "Nazi Germany alone bears responsibility."

"I now have a lot of work before me to make things right in this situation," he added.

Foreign ministry spokesman Marcin Wojciechowski wrote on Twitter today that Mull would "receive a note of protest and a summons for an apology" over Comey's comments.

Komorowski told public television that the FBI head's comments showed a "lack of historical knowledge" and "this requires a reaction from the Polish state".

They were an "insult to thousands of Poles who helped Jews".

Mull was quick to offer an informal apology at memorial ceremonies in the Polish capital today marking the 72nd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

"Any suggestion that Poland, or any other countries other than Nazi Germany, bear responsibility for the Holocaust, is a mistake, harmful and insulting," Mull told reporters.