A report of a remarkable ceremony at Auschwitz in March 2019 tells of Israeli and Polish students standing side by side reading out the names of their relatives who were murdered in the Holocaust at Auschwitz-Birkenau and other death camps.

As is widely known, the Polish government in recent years has gone to an extreme of seeking to deny any and all involvement of Poles alongside the Nazis in the execution of the Holocaust, and it has been emphasizing a narrative that focuses on the Polish victims of the Nazis and not only the Jewish victims.  The joint ceremony of Israeli and Polish young people avoids the effort at denying Polish persecution and murders of Jews while at the same time achieving a touching and legitimate reconstruction of the fates of so many Poles too.

Intriguingly, it is reported that when this project was first proposed to the Israel Education Ministry, “They called me a traitor, they accused me of introducing Israeli teens to anti-Semites, to the children of murderers.”

The Israeli students who participated in this project also went on to the memorial at Jedwabne whose inhabitants murdered hundreds of Jews who came home after the Holocaust – as described by the world famous Polish-Jewish historian Jan Gross.  These students reported that when they arrived they were greeted with the hostility of the locals whose attitude was, “it’s not us, it’s the Germans.”

For the complete story, see Aderet, Ofer (March 26, 2019).  Two peoples, one ceremony: Israeli, Polish students hold memorial at Auschwitz.  Haaretz English Edition.

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/.premium-two-peoples-one-ceremony-israeli-polish-students-hold-memorial-at-auschwitz-1.7059463