Holocaust Survivors Protest at Polish Embassy

YERUSHALAYIM
Poland Holocaust
Holocaust survivors and activists protest outside the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv, Thursday. (Tomer Neuberg/Flash90)

Holocaust survivors who know firsthand the crimes of the Poles during World War II staged a demonstration at the Polish embassy in Tel Aviv on Thursday to voice their outrage at the new law, which outlaws blaming Poland for the crimes of the Holocaust.

Dozens of survivors entered the embassy compound, while security guards prevented them from going into the embassy building itself, The Times of Israel reported.

At one point, demonstrators surrounded a diplomat’s car, and shouted at the occupants: “Nobody will forget what you did,” Ynet reported.

They held up signs in Hebrew and Polish with the saying: “No law will erase history” and “The Polish law spits in the Israeli people’s face.”

The rally was organized by the Yad Ezer La-Haver foundation, which operates a home for Holocaust survivors in Haifa. The demonstrators said they intend to erect a protest tent outside the embassy.

Outraged survivors, some now in their 90s, told reporters of their own terrible experiences at the hands of the Poles.

“Every Passover there were pogroms against us, so the Poles were anti-Semitic and received orders from the Polish church,” said 80-year-old Shaul Gorka, according to Ynet. “This law is absolutely terrible.”

“I only know one family in the whole village who helped me. All the rest didn’t care,” said 80-year-old Esti Lieber.

Judith Rosenzweig, 88, said that in the camps, “the Poles around us saw what was happening because we were walking in lines, under rifles belonging to German and Polish soldiers. If one of us would exit the line, they would kill him.

“The Poles just stood idly, didn’t do anything, just looked at the lines,” Rosenzweig continued. “We were without clothes on, or in torn clothes in freezing October — and we marched like that and they looked at us. Nobody objected and nobody helped.”

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