An Israeli delegation of 180 military and defense personnel was prevented from carrying national flags during a solemn march at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on Thursday, in an incident that has reignited sensitivities in Israel-Poland relations. The delegation, part of Israel’s official ‘Witnesses in Uniform’ program, was stopped at the entrance to the camp by a local police officer, who ordered that the Israeli flags be removed from view.
According to a report at The Jewish News Syndicate (JNS), despite repeated attempts by Israeli representatives to reason with the officer, the order was enforced. Delegation leaders ultimately instructed their flagbearers to lower the standards, leaving the group to proceed without the traditional display of the national emblem.
The Witnesses in Uniform program, which includes current and former members of the Israel Defense Forces, the broader defense establishment, and family members of fallen soldiers, has long conducted commemorative marches in Poland. These ceremonies, held at former Nazi concentration and extermination sites, typically feature uniformed participants carrying Israeli flags as symbols of resilience and remembrance.
One participant, speaking anonymously to Israeli media and cited by JNS, described the event as “humiliating.” The individual noted that never before had such a prohibition been enforced: “No military ceremony has ever been halted midway; not in the forests, not in Treblinka, not in Warsaw, not in Majdanek. In all of them, we marched with flag bearers at the front.”
The source added that the prohibition was especially painful given the visibility of the moment. “This humiliation was public, right in front of a crowd of onlookers who were filming us and impressed by the military ceremony. Every year, delegations are allowed in with flags. There are well-known photos, always, of officers in uniform carrying flags at Birkenau. In our view, the directive stemmed from a mix of antisemitism and an attempt to reshape the past,” the participant said.
For decades, Israeli delegations—both military and civilian—have traveled to Poland as part of educational and commemorative initiatives aimed at preserving Holocaust memory. Tens of thousands of Israeli high school students annually took part in youth missions to former Nazi camps, long considered a formative rite of passage in Israeli education.
As JNS has often reported, these trips serve as a powerful method of Holocaust education, bringing students face-to-face with the sites of genocide while emphasizing the importance of Jewish continuity and national resilience.
In recent years, however, political disputes between Warsaw and Jerusalem disrupted these exchanges. Poland’s enactment of legislation that curtailed discussion of Polish collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Holocaust, coupled with a ban on property restitution claims from Holocaust victims and their descendants, caused relations to deteriorate sharply.
By 2021, Israel withdrew its ambassador from Warsaw, and Poland reciprocated, leaving ties in a prolonged freeze. Educational trips were suspended as disagreements flared over security arrangements and the framing of Holocaust history.
Relations between the two countries began to improve in 2023, leading to the restoration of ambassadors. On July 21, Israeli President Isaac Herzog received the credentials of Poland’s new envoy to Israel, Maciej Hunia—the first Polish ambassador in nearly three years.
According to the information provided in the JNS report, the thaw followed months of careful diplomacy aimed at resolving disputes over historical memory. While differences remain, both sides have sought to reinvigorate educational exchanges, with Israeli youth trips to Poland resuming in the past year.
It is against this backdrop of tentative reconciliation that Thursday’s incident took place. For many in Israel, the sight of a police officer barring their national symbols at a site synonymous with Jewish annihilation raised painful echoes of the very history such commemorations are designed to confront.
As of Friday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry has not issued an official response to the incident. JNS reported that the ministry is reviewing the matter and considering its implications for both bilateral ties and future delegations.
The lack of immediate comment has underscored the sensitivity of the situation. On one hand, Israeli officials seek to preserve the fragile diplomatic progress made with Warsaw in recent months. On the other, the prohibition on displaying Israeli flags at Auschwitz has struck a deep emotional chord, particularly among bereaved families and survivors who view the flag as a symbol of defiance against annihilation.
The Israeli flag, featuring the Star of David at its center, has long been carried by delegations visiting Holocaust sites in Poland. Its presence is widely understood as a visual testament to Jewish survival and the rebirth of the State of Israel after the Holocaust.
As JNS has frequently noted, photographs of uniformed Israeli officers carrying flags through Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek are iconic images that highlight the enduring connection between the memory of the Holocaust and the state’s existence.
To many, the restriction at Auschwitz represented not a bureaucratic misunderstanding but a profound affront to that symbolic continuity.
The Auschwitz incident has cast a shadow over the resumption of Israeli-Polish youth missions and raised concerns about how Holocaust memory is managed at official sites in Poland. Israeli delegations have long insisted on retaining autonomy over their ceremonies, particularly when they involve national symbols such as flags and uniforms.
As the JNS report observed, the episode may also reignite debates over how Poland confronts its wartime past and the extent to which external delegations are permitted to frame commemorations in their own terms.
The fact that the order was issued publicly, before onlookers filming the delegation, has intensified its resonance. It remains unclear whether the decision reflected a standing policy by Polish authorities or the actions of a single officer.
For now, the delegation has returned home, with participants left to reflect on what many described as a painful and humiliating experience. The trial of reconciliation between Israel and Poland will continue, but the Auschwitz flag incident has underscored just how fragile the relationship remains when history, symbolism, and politics intersect.
As one delegation member told Ynet, and cited in the JNS report, “Every year, delegations are allowed in with flags. This year, we were stopped. For us, it felt like an attempt to erase both the memory of the past and the meaning of our present.
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