Polish-Israeli tribute to the victims of the Holocaust and the Righteous

Maria Zawadzka, 16 November 2016
The ceremony held at Treblinka on Wednesday, October 27th, 2010 began with a minute’s silence. Afterwards, the Israeli and Polish anthems were played.

In the former Nazi camp 300 high-school students from Poland and Israel gathered, as well as representatives of the authorities of both countries and of the Mazowsze province self-government. They paid homage to the Jews and Poles murdered at the camp.

The ceremony was organized on the initiative of the Mazowieckie provincial governor in cooperation with the Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Museum of Fighting and Martyrdom in Treblinka.

“Those people and this place deserve our memory. They were killed because of their faith, nationality and convictions. Today, like in the past, we are together” – said the Mazowieckie provincial governor Jacek Kozłowski.

“We also want to pay tribute to the Poles, Righteous Among the Nations, who were killed for helping Jews during the Holocaust” – emphasized Eli Shaish, representative of the Israeli Ministry of Education.

After the speeches, six candles were lit together by the vice-ambassador of Israel Nadav Eshcar, the Mazowieckie provincial governor, the Righteous Among the Nations and representatives of the provincial marshal, the young people and the Rescued.

The Polish-Israeli delegation laid flowers by the plaque commemorating the murdered Poles.

The ceremony was preceded by integration-historical workshops for young people, entitled “We are together”. Polish and Israeli students participated in them: students from the high school in Beersheba and from schools in the Mazowsze province: Siedlce, Mińsk Mazowiecki, Łochów, Węgrów, Małkinia, Sokołów Podlaski and Kosów Lacki.

During the workshops, the students jointly confronted the problem of the Holocaust and fought with stereotypical ways of looking at each other. They also studied the history of the orphanage (Dom Sierot) ran by Janusz Korczak, as well as stories of the Polish Righteous.

The workshops were prepared by the Museum of the History of Polish Jews who, in cooperation with the Forum for Dialogue Between Nations and the Center for Citizenship Education, created the program of the Polish Intercultural Youth Encounters (PIYE). As part of this project, workshops and high school and college exchanges are conducted.

Treblinka II was an extermination camp, located 4 km from the train station in Małkinia, on the route to Białystok. The camp was founded in Spring 1942 as part of the Reinhard action – the Nazi plan of exterminating Jews from the General Government.

Hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered there – from Warsaw and its surroundings, from the Radomskie and Lubelskie regions, from the vicinity of Białystok, as well as Slovakia, Greece and Macedonia. It is estimated that about 900,000 people died there.