'We are together' - Israeli and Polish school kids at Treblinka

photo - PAP/Pawel Supernak

It is estimated that about 900,000 Jews, mostly from Poland but also Slovakia, Greece and Macedonia, perished in Treblinka during Nazi German occupat

The Polish-Israeli educational project, organized for the fourth successive year, is the brainchild of the governor of the Mazovia province Jacek Kozlowski.

The governor told the Polish Press Agency that he would like young Israelis to look at Poland not only as the country where the Holocaust took place but also as the land where Poles and Jews lived together for over one thousand years and a country of young people with whom it is worth while making friends.

Kozlowski added that the young inhabitants of towns in central Poland, whose pre-Second World War population was up to 70 per cent Jewish, should learn more about local history and the Jewish heritage of their communities.

The ceremony in Treblinka was attended by the Israeli ambassador to Poland Zvi Rav-Ner and Samuel Willenberg, the last living participant of the prisoners’ revolt in Treblinka.

Over 800 prisoners took part in the revolt which broke out on 2 August 1943: about 200 of them managed to escape but no more than one hundred survived the war.

Before the ceremony in Treblinka, young Poles and Israelis attended workshops in schools in nearby towns. (mk/pg)