Mattel offers apology after 'Nazi Poland' card game outrage

US toy manufacturer Mattel has issued a public apology after it produced a card game which used the term "Nazi Poland".

In card game Apples to Apples, in which the players have to guess a word based on its description on a card, Holocaust film Schindler's List is described as: "1993 Steven Spielberg film. Powerful, real-life story of a Catholic businessman who eventually saved over 1,000 Jews in Nazi Poland."

Today, Mattel, which manufactures Barbie dolls, issued a public apology.

"We discovered this inaccuracy back in 2013 and we immediately removed this card from the game. We apologize for the gross oversight," Mattel said, and offered to exchange copies of the game which include the card for those without it free of charge.

Poland's US ambassador Ryszard Schnepf welcomed an apology offered by Mattel's chief executive Christopher Sinclair.

"The embassy also positively considers [Mattel's] offer to exchange the old version of the game for a new one, where there is no trace of the term which goes against historical truth and assaults the good name of our country," the embassy said.

During World War II, Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany with more than 6 million Poles were killed, half of them Polish Jews. A series of death camps were built on Polish soil, among them Auschwitz, where 1.1 million lost their lives.

This week, FBI director James Comey also apologised after referring to "the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary" in a speech at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC.

In a letter to Schnepf, Comey said "I regret linking Germany and Poland in my speech because Poland was invaded and occupied by Germany. The Polish state bears no responsibility for the horrors imposed by the Nazis."