Head of Policy
Special Broadcasting Service
Locked Bag 028
Crows Nest NSW 2065

Dear Sir/Madam

In your TV program, World News, screened on 16 May 2004 at 6.30 pm., you showed a story covering the burial ceremony of the ashes of Jewish victims from the Auschwitz concentration camp. I quote the voiceover from the official transcript:

" It's a long way in time and place from the horrors of Auschwitz to the Springvale Cemetery in Melbourne's south-east. But here, ashes taken from the Polish death camp some 20 years ago make their final journey. "

On behalf of the Polish Community in Australia I have to lodge an emphatic protest at such a distortion of history. For you and your journalists' information, there were no Polish death camps during WWII or any other war. There were Nazi camps in Poland occupied by Germany. If you have qualms in using the word "German", please use the same reticence when using "Polish".

The most common excuse for such a distortion of truth is that it is only a "journalistic shortcut". This is hardly an excuse for ignorance or plain sloppiness. Neither was this an isolated instance of this particular error. It has, unfortunately, become a journalistic convention. I realise that the footage used in the program may not have been the product of SBS, however I claim that it was incumbent on SBS to have checked it for accuracy before putting it to air, especially since it is in the charter of SBS to promote "Racial Harmony". The ABC showing the same footage demonstrated more sensitivity, than the SBS, by omitting the reference to "Polish death camps".

I therefore, on behalf of the Polish Community in Australia, demand an unqualified correction of the story and public apology. Failing that we will instruct our lawyers to pursue the matter further.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Janusz Rygielski,
President
Polish Community Council of Australia
20 May 2004