Yad Vashem criticizes new Poland deal on educational tours

The deal includes “problematic locations that aren’t okay to visit on an educational trip,” Yad Vashem said in a statement.

By TPS

Israel’s National Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Jerusalem is not pleased with the new deal with the government of Poland that will once again allow youth groups from Israel to travel to that country over Israel’s Holocaust Memorial Day – Yom Hashoa.

In a statement Yad Vashem said while it values the importance of group visits from Israel to Poland to study the Holocaust and preserve its memory, it also feels it is essential that these groups be accompanied by “appropriate preparation, guidance, and processing while maintaining complete historical accuracy, including the role of Poles in the persecution, handing in, and murder of Jews during the Holocaust, as well as in acts of rescue.”

Yad Vashem acknowledged that the recent agreement to renew educational visits to Poland does not appear to dictate or limit their operation in this respect; nevertheless, the annex of the agreement contains a list of sites, compiled without Yad Vashem’s input, which includes what it calls “problematic sites that should not be visited in an educational context”.

Yad Vashem, therefore, said it will not be involved in group visits to any site suspected of “distorting the events of the Holocaust or presenting a historically inaccurate narrative.”