Sir, – The article "Hidden for 40 years: Renia Spiegel's second World War diary" (September 29th) includes the following: "Five days after she wrote this final diary entry, Renia Spiegel was dead. She was shot by the Nazis who had discovered her in hiding alongside her boyfriend's parents: he had endeavoured to save them all, but someone had betrayed their attic hiding place in the Przemysl ghetto in Poland", and "It's hard to connect this elegantly-dressed woman, wearing her gold jewellery so insouciantly, with the image I have in my head of her as a child escaping from a Polish ghetto".
I wish to point out that the phrases “ghetto in Poland” and “Polish ghetto” used in the text are misleading and inaccurate.
Poland did not exist as an independent state at the time Jewish ghettos were established and run on its territory by Nazi Germany.
I want to believe that the phrases “ghetto in Poland” and “Polish ghetto” used in the article were unintended mistakes, yet they are an oversight unacceptable to Poland and the Polish community in Ireland. – Yours, etc,
ANNA SOCHANSKA,
Ambassador of Poland
to Ireland,
Embassy of the
Republic of Poland,
Ballsbridge,
Dublin 4.