Polish American Congress files a complaint with the National Broadcasting Company (NBC)

Mr. Philip Griffin
Chief Executive Officer
NBC Universal
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112

February 15, 2019

Dear Mr. Griffin,

As president of Polish America’s oldest and largest issue advocacy organization, the Polish American Congress, I was shocked and dismayed by the falsehoods broadcast from Warsaw, Poland on February 13, 2019 by Ms. Andrea Mitchell.  She should be ashamed of herself, because as a journalist at MSNBC, the public will believe her falsehoods to be true. Her wrong statement that Poles worked in partnership with Nazi German soldiers to liquidate the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto in April 1943 is not true, and her false report triggered an avalanche of emails and phone calls to our Polish American Congress national offices in both Chicago and Washington, DC. 
 
Mitchell publicized this egregious falsehood while covering the Warsaw conference on the Middle East, which was hosted by the Polish Government. This conference, largely devoted to mustering support to punish Iran, did not go well for the United States and Israel.  Perhaps Mitchell felt frustrated by this and decided to vent her anti-Polonism, a form of racism based on the bogus claims that Poles are biologically predisposed to anti-Semitism and are co-responsible with Nazi Germans for perpetrating the mass murder of Polish and European Jewry during World War II. 
 
The comment made by her in Poland on Wednesday, February 13th, 2019 violates the truth about Poland and the Poles during World War II, and it degrades the reputation of the best NATO ally which the United States has in Eastern Europe.  Please see the attached/enclosed POLISH AMERICAN CONGRESS STATEMENT ON POLAND AND THE POLES DURING WORLD WAR II.

As an experienced journalist, Mitchell should know the elementary facts of history. She is not a novice in her field.  Mitchell should not flagrantly disregard the facts of World War II’s history to muster pressure on today’s Poles to pay Israel and transnational Jewish organizations extravagant compensation, $365 billion is the most recent demand, for crimes perpetrated by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union against private property owned by Jews on conquered Polish territory.
  
Mitchell ‘s wrong report had immediate and direct consequences.  Yesterday, in Washington, DC  a Polish American schoolboy was assaulted by his school mates on a school bus and called a Polish Nazi by those influenced by Mitchell’s wrong report. You should not permit individuals, such as Mitchell, who has been admired as a respected journalist for so many decades, to continue her role as a senior journalist, since she reports falsehoods about Poland, an important ally of the United States.

As the President of the Polish American Congress, I request two actions to redress Mitchell’s wrong report.  First, Mitchell promptly must broadcast a correction on her program, “Andrea Mitchell Reports.”  Second, I request that you, on behalf of MSNBC,  send to me a written correction which I will ask the mass media to publish.

Sincerely,                                                                                                                      

John Czop 
Director of Policy Planning

The letter is published with permission of the Polish American Congress