In March 2017, Jakub Vaugon, who was then 14 and was attending school in Paris, managed to correct the record regarding false information contained in his history textbook concerning Poland. The book stated that Poles were part of the Treblinka concentration camp staff.
The teenager’s parents, Agnieszka and Jerome Vaugon, told the Polish Press Agency that the consequences due to their son’s actions were severe, resulting in an unpleasant reaction among his friends and the school staff. The students called him a “Polack” and a “descendant of murderers”.
“When our son came home with news about what happened in class, he was very upset. No one believed him that Poles were not the perpetrators in Treblinka,” Mrs. Vaugon said.
When the parents tried to resolve the incident through a conversation with school authorities, they were mocked and Jakub was told to edify himself.
“The school’s headmaster told us, ‘You and your Polish resentments’. Meanwhile, the history teacher was displeased that Jakub had an opinion different to the one in the textbook,” the parents explained.
Following the incident, Jakub’s parents contacted the Treblinka Museum to ask for help in verifying the information in the textbook. The museum’s authorities confirmed that the information was a severe historical error, and in their letter to the Vaugons, they appealed to the textbook’s publisher to correct the mistake.
