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We told you earlier this week about the anger in Poland over remarks made by the head of the FBI linking that country to the Holocaust. Hungary, which James Comey also mentioned in his speech, has now joined in the protests against the comments.

"The words of the FBI director bear witness to astounding insensitivity and impermissible superficiality," the Hungarian Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "We do not accept from anyone the formulation of such a generalization and defamation."

In a speech last week at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, a version of which was published in The Washington Post, Comey called the Holocaust "the most significant event in world history." But it was his remarks about who participated in the killing of Jews that drew most of the attention. Comey said:

"In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn't do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do. That's what people do. And that should truly frighten us."

Poland summoned Stephen Mull, the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw, to the Foreign Ministry on Sunday to demand an apology.

Mull later told reporters that suggesting any country other than Nazi Germany was responsible for the Holocaust "is harmful and offensive." But he added: "Director Comey certainly did not mean to suggest that Poland was in any way responsible for those crimes."

Comey himself addressed the controversy on Tuesday when he was asked by Tennessee's WATE-TV if he had an apology to those offended by his remarks.

"I don't," he said. "Except I didn't say Poland was responsible for the Holocaust. In a way I wish very much that I hadn't mentioned any countries because it's distracted some folks from my point.

"I worry a little bit in some countries that point has gotten lost. There is no doubt that people in Poland heroically resisted the Nazis, and some people heroically protected the Jews, but there's also no doubt that in every country occupied by the Nazis, there were people collaborating with the Nazis."

The issue is a sensitive one in Poland, which was angered by President Obama's remarks in 2012 when he referred to a "Polish death camp." The White House called that a "misstatement" that it regretted.

But as Abraham Foxman, a Holocaust survivor from Poland who now heads the Anti-Defamation League, notes the issue is more complicated. In an essay on MSNBC, Foxman notes that a Polish Catholic woman saved his life when he was a boy. He adds:

"Poles have a right to set the record straight about their history when it is distorted or conflated with that of the Nazis and Germany. But Mr. Comey was not wrong in what was his essential message: As evil as the Nazis were, their phantasmagoric mission to destroy the Jewish people was made much easier because the public in most European countries, Poland included, too often acted as bystanders and sometimes even as accomplices."

Writing in The Post, Laurence Weinbaum, director of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, called Comey's remarks "carelessly drafted, though presumably well-intentioned." But he says:

"Thanks to the efforts of Polish researchers, we now know that more Poles participated in the destruction and despoliation of their Jewish neighbors than was previously believed. Many Poles saw the removal of the Jews from Poland as the one beneficial byproduct of an otherwise grievous occupation. For the least scrupulous local people, the Holocaust was also an El Dorado-like opportunity for self-enrichment and gratification. For some, this temptation was irresistible, and they did not recoil from committing acts of murder, rape and larceny — not always orchestrated by the Germans."

The Associated Press reports that Frank Spula, head of the Polish American Congress , an organization that represents at least 10 million Americans of Polish descent, said he would expect Comey to resign over his remarks.

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The fighting in Georgia can be hard to follow from afar, but it traces a theme that has been recurring ever since the Soviet Union shattered into 15 countries in 1991. Georgia was one of those lands that gained independence, but it soon degenerated into a war in the northern region of Abkhazia, where Russian-backed separatists carved out a piece of territory they claim and hold until this day.

The conflict feels eerily familiar now in the context of the current turmoil in Ukraine, and has haunted much of recent Georgian cinema (or, to be fair, the limited scope of Georgian cinema that reaches North American audiences). In 2012's The Machine Which Makes Everything Disappear and 2013's In Bloom, the war is never directly seen but its ravaging effect on Georgian society—the thousands of dead, the broken families that resulted—is evident. Zaza Urushadze's Tangerines, meanwhile, is actually set during the war, but the movie examines the conflict so circumspectly that it actually feels more distant than in either of the other films.

Urushadze's movie, a surprise Oscar nominee earlier this year for Best Foreign Language Film, centers on Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak), an Estonian living in what is now a Georgian war zone. While the majority of his fellow Estonians have returned home to escape the conflict—according to an opening title card, Estonian communities in Georgia date back 100 years—Ivo has stayed to help his neighbor, Margus (Elmo Nganen), harvest his tangerine crop, for which Ivo makes the crates.

Ivo and Margus seem relatively protected from the front lines of the war, but the conflict comes to them when two Abkhazian mercenaries arrive looking for food and proceed to get in a gunfight with Georgian soldiers outside Margus's home. Two wounded men emerge—the first, Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze), an Abkhazian; the second, Niko (Misha Meskhi), a Georgian—and Ivo brings them both back to his house to help them recover.

The set-up—two enemies living under the same roof, both owing their lives to a gracious, neutral party—is already more allegorical than realist, and Urushadze's script never pushes much further. The arguments between Ahmed and Niko—who both promise Ivo they won't kill each other in Ivo's house—are simplistic: One says the land they're on is Abkhazian, the other that it's Georgian; Ahmed emasculates Niko; Niko calls Ahmed uneducated. It's not, to say the least, a deep or particularly insightful examination of the roots of war.

Instead, it's evident pretty early that Urushadze is pushing not toward an examination of war but to an appreciation of our common humanity. (Margus's tangerines—superfluous and at risk of neglect during such a violent conflict—are overused as a symbol in this respect.) Some might reject the message outright, but even if it appeals, here it's too far removed from reality to be effective. For one, the event that catalyzes the inevitable reconciliation of differences between Niko and Ahmed is nearly unbelievable in its contrivance. But most of all, because the conflict between Abkhazians and Georgians is so sketchily drawn, the ultimate heartwarming tone of the film seems not so much unearned as unspectacular.

There might be, to be fair, a problem of cultural translation. American films need only scantily explain the horrors and importance of the Vietnam War because they're a matter of common knowledge at this point. The same may be true of the Abkhazian War in Georgia. But there's still a difference between Tangerines and the more successful In Bloom or Machine. The latter two don't explain much about the war either, but you can see its effects on the faces of its characters and subjects. In Tangerines, that same work is left entirely to our imaginations.

The ancient Rabban Hermizd Monestary, on a hill overlooking the northern village of al-Qosh, is a testament to the long history of Christians in Iraq. Stone walls leading up the hill are decorated with iconography, and the 7th-century monastery is covered with the ancient Syriac language, still spoken today by the people of al-Qosh.

"Christians have been here in the Ninevah plains for thousands of years. It would be a tragedy if we just disappeared," said Athra Kado, a local Syriac language teacher.

But on Aug. 6 of last year, the people of al-Qosh did disappear, in a manner of speaking.

The self-declared Islamic State, or ISIS, was within about six miles and had been advancing rapidly in northern Iraq, overrunning Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, as well as other towns and villages in the area.

Kurdish forces that opposed ISIS, known as the Peshmerga, came to al-Qosh on the night of Aug. 6 to warn the residents they were in imminent danger.

The Peshmerga "threw a barricade across the road just outside al-Qosh, but we knew that wouldn't stop" ISIS, said Kado.

Ancient Assyrian, a language dating to biblical times, decorates the Rabban Hermzid Monastery that was built in the 7th century. Alex Potter for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Alex Potter for NPR

The residents fled, leaving al-Qosh a ghost town. But something curious happened. For reasons unknown, ISIS stopped stopped short of al-Qosh and never tried to enter the village.

After a while, the residents felt secure enough to return and it has been buzzing with activity this spring. The markets are open, the schools are running, and families are picnicking on the hills overlooking al-Qosh.

While all appears well for the moment, the future of Christians in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East is not particularly bright.

Christians in Iraq numbered about 1.5 million, or about 8 percent of the population, before the U.S. invasion that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003.

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More than a decade of war and upheaval has prompted many Christians to leave. Today the Christian population in Iraq is estimated to have dropped below 400,000.

The Christian exodus from Iraq is one part of a larger trend that has been playing out for decades throughout the wider Middle East. In the mid-20th century, Christians were estimated to be about 20 percent of the Middle East's population. Today, it's 5 percent at most.

In 2008 and 2010, al-Qosh became a safe haven for civilians fleeing turbulence in the Mosul area, about 30 miles to the south. The same thing happened again before and after the ISIS threat last August.

Elderly women from the countryside have stayed in an empty local school. The women said they were comfortable and well provided for, though they hoped to return to their homes.

The residents of al-Qosh have now set up their own militia in hopes of protecting the village should it again be threatened.

Kado and a number of his friends serve rotating days on militia duty, patrolling the town and the surrounding area. As they climbed the flower-covered hill behind the monastery to water newly planted trees, they reflected on the situation.

An Assyrian Christian couple walks through the market area of al-Qosh, where most residents have returned after fleeing last August in the face of an advance of the Islamic State. The ancient village is about 30 miles north of Mosul, Iraq's second biggest city, which is still held by the Islamic State. Alex Potter for NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Alex Potter for NPR

"We come up here to picnic, to be with our friends. This is our town, we don't want to give it up," said Riven Nafe, an engineer.

A priest in a local church, Gabriel Gorgis, said it is the world's duty to help protect dwindling Christian communities in place like al-Qosh.

"Look around at our history," said Gorgis. "We have been here for thousands of years. Wouldn't it be a shame to the world and future generations to lose us?"

Iraq

Normay is going to eliminate FM radio in less than two years, the country's government announced, becoming the first country in the world to do so.

Norway is planning to transition completely to digital broadcasting in January 2017.

The Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system offers a number of benefits over FM, said Thorhild Widvey, Norway's minister of culture, in a statement last week.

"Listeners will have access to more diverse and pluralistic radio content, and enjoy better sound quality and new functionality. Digitisation will also greatly improve the emergency preparedness system, facilitate increased competition and offer new opportunities for innovation and development," she said.

The cost of transmitting national radio channels through the FM network currently in place is eight times higher than with the digital network, the announcement said.

"Whereas the FM system only had space for five national channels, DAB already offers 22, and there is capacity for almost 20 more," Widvey added.

The country has been discussing the switch for years but a 2017 move hinged on the availability of "affordable and technically satisfactory solutions" for people who listen in their cars, and that the signal that carries the national services cover more than 90 percent of Norway's population.

Only 20 percent of private cars are currently equipped with DAB technology, according to TNS Gallup, a Norwegian market analysis agency, but the technology is widely available.

Digital radio is much less vulnerable to transmitter failure in extreme conditions, the Norwegian government said, which adds to the emergency preparedness appeal.

Several countries in Europe and Southeast Asia are also considering a switch to digital broadcasting, reports Radio.no.