By Facebook’s standards, is it illegal to write about German crimes from World War II? On 20 June, our post stating that the Auschwitz camp was founded by Germans was removed. Today, another post has been deleted – this time about Tadeusz Boy Żeleński and the Lviv (Lwów) professors murdered on the night of 3/4 July 1941 by the Germans from the Einsatzkommando zur besonderen Verwendung (Special Purpose Squad) under the command of Eberhard Schöngarth.
Facebook is once again using censorship. The reasons for the removal of our previous article Facebook bans writing that the Auschwitz camp was founded by Germans have not been presented. Our article Facebook prohibits to state that Auschwitz was established by Germans was shared by numerous newspapers in Poland.
Today is the anniversary of the massacre of 21 Lviv professors (and their families) on the Wuleckie Hills. Not only people from the Lviv scientific community perished in it, but also a doctor, literary critic, translator of French literature, and the so-called “conscience of the Polish nation” – Tadeusz Boy Żeleński. That was the exact publication about Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński – a memory piece about the writer that was removed by Facebook.
We added a short description to the article, a so-called ’teaser’ with the following content: „On the night of 3 to 4 July 1941, the Germans carried out a massacre of professors of Lviv universities on the Wuleckie Hills. Among them was Tadeusz Żeleński (Boy). It is no exaggeration to say that the execution of Tadeusz Żeleński can be called a symbolic murder of Polish culture.”
As before, one of our administrators received a message from Facebook informing him that the post had been removed because … „it violates the social platform’s standards and our publication is misleading to readers”.
Sounds like censorship? Apparently, according to Facebook’s standards, it is not allowed to write about German crimes or present historical truths inconvenient to them. We have already appealed the decision and will keep our readers updated.
Daria Więcek
Translation: Tomasz Modrzejewski
Zdjęcie: IPN
