The Polish Never Again (Nigdy Więcej) Association and UK anti-fascist magazine Seachlight asked Polish and UK authorities to ban revisionist British historian David Irving's tour of Holocaust sites. The tour is due to take place next week.
"We urge the Polish and British authorities for a strong response," read a joint statement from the two parties.
Poland's (lack of) reaction to the visit was called "wholly inadequate" and "gutless." The organizations also reminded the two countries that Mr Irving was arrested and imprisoned for denying the Holocaust when he visited Austria in 2006, and that other countries have simply denied him entry.
The tour, due to take place from September 21 to 29, is set to include the former Treblinka death camp, Hitler's "Wolf's Lair" headquarters at Kętrzyn in northeastern Poland and the base of SS leader Heinrich Himmler.
According to Mr Irving, the tour was so popular he had to turn potential customers away, and he plans to repeat the journey every two years.
Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) spokesperson Andrzej Arseniuk was quoted by Polish magazine Newsweek as saying that IPN prosecutors would take action if Mr Irving was to publicly deny Nazi crimes. Doing so would be a violation of Polish law.
Addressing criticisms of his upcoming visit, Mr Irving indicated on his website that, "I shall be saying nothing anywhere which violates any laws; on the contrary, I am mildly worried I may upset the more revisionist of our guests with my statements."
He also told the UK's Daily Mail that he does not deny that the Nazis did murder millions in the death camps. He added that his interest in Treblinka and the other camps stemmed from his current work on a biography of Heinrich Himmler.
From Warsaw Business Journal by Alice Trudelle
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Being happy–is it good for the Jews? "Before Professor Dershowitz accused me of being an anti-Semite (news to me), I was a happy person. Since then, I'm still a happy person". –Michael Santomauro
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