President Barack Obama finally apologized for saying that Poland, rather than Germany, was responsible for Nazi "death camps," according to the Washington Post:
"In referring to ‘a Polish death camp’ rather than ‘a Nazi death camp in German-occupied Poland,’ I inadvertently used a phrase that has caused many Poles anguish over the years and that Poland has rightly campaigned to eliminate from public discourse around the world," Obama wrote [in a letter to the president of Poland]. "I regret the error and agree that this moment is an opportunity to ensure that this and future generations know the truth."
Obama and his Press Secretary Jay Carney initially refused to apologize outright for the gaffe. Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski accepted the apology.
"The events of the past few days and the U.S. president’s reply may, in my opinion, mark a very important moment in the struggle for historical truth," President Bronislaw Komorowski told reporters.
Obama made the verbal slip-up while posthumously awarding the Medal of Freedom to Jan Karski, a resistance fighter who struggled to tell the outside world about the murder of Jews in his country. Karski, who was Catholic, smuggled himself into the Warsaw Ghetto and a death camp, witnessing the atrocities committed against the Jews firsthand. He then took that information to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and other Allied leaders, imploring the world to act.