Poland submitted a proposal to Israel on Wednesday to resume Holocaust memorial tours in the country for Israeli high school students after several months-long freezes.
Amid controversy over Holocaust memory in Poland, Israel canceled organized youth trips to the country over attempts to manipulate educational content presented to Israeli delegations.
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Israeli students visit Auschwitz as part of Holocaust memorial trip
(Photo: Moshe Milner)
Then-foreign minister Yair Lapid stated that "the Poles wanted to mess with the content of the trips and what can or can’t be said to Israeli children visiting."
In 2018 Poland adopted a law that prohibits discussing historical facts regarding Poles' actions against Jews during the Holocaust, going so far as to accuse Israel of fostering "anti-Polonism," or prejudice against Poles as an ethnic group and the state of Poland and its culture. This legislation strained Warsaw's ties with the Jewish state.
Then-prime minister Naftali Bennett branded the law “a shameful decision and disgraceful contempt for the memory of the Holocaust” and said that “Poland has chosen to continue harming those who have lost everything.”
According to public broadcaster Kan news, Warsaw conditioned the resumption on Israeli security guards accompanying the tours being unarmed, as well as the "modification of certain contents" conveyed during the trips. Jerusalem is yet to respond to the offer.