Ghetto claim of Polish leader's father not official position

WARSAW – Poland's government is distancing itself from comments made by the prime minister's father, who claimed Jews willingly entered ghettos during the German occupation of Poland to escape their non-Jewish neighbors.

The comment by Kornel Morawiecki, a senior lawmaker and father of Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, is the latest episode in weeks of bitterness that have erupted over a new law that criminalizes falsely blaming Poland for the crimes of Nazi Germany.

Kornel Morawiecki claimed in a recent interview that Jews were not forced into ghettos by Germans but went willingly because "they were told there would be an enclave where they could get away from nasty Poles."

The deputy foreign minister, Bartosz Cichocki, said Thursday that the comment does not reflect the position of the Polish government.