PARIS/WARSAW (EJP)---A delegation from the French Jewish community, led by CRIF president Richard Prasquier, will pay next week a 4-day visit to Poland to attend commemorations of the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis and meet local leaders.
Several international dignitaries, including Israeli President Shimon Peres- who was born in Poland- and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, are among those scheduled to attend a ceremony next Tuesday in Warsaw in the presence of Polish President Lech Kaczynski.
At this ceremony, survivors of the uprising are to gather at the city's imposing Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto to recite the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead.
Ewa Junczyk-Ziomecka, minister of state in the Polish Presidential Chancellery, explained: ‘’President Kaczynski wanted the commemoration of the Ghetto Uprising anniversary to bring together Jews and Poles. Hence his invitation extended to President Shimon Peres. They share respect for the past and that’s why they will be together on that day."
Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the uprising, who still lives in Poland, will lay flowers at the Monument on April 19, the anniversary of the start of the uprising.
Official state ceremonies are being held earlier because the 19th falls on the Jewish Sabbath and on the eve of the Passover festival.
The Polish Jewish community has invited Varsovians to attend the Seder, the traditional meal of the Jewish Passover festival, on April 19.
A wide range of cultural events is also planned to the mark the anniversary. They include a concert by the Israeli Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta.
The Nazis set up the ghetto in November 1940 in the heart of Warsaw, forcing some 400,000 Jews to live there in inhuman conditions.
On the 19 April 1943, more than 200 young Jews took up arms against the German army in 1943, staging attacks and ambushes as troops began liquidating the ghetto, sending its tens of thousands of residents to death camps.
After three weeks, the leaders of the uprising were rounded up by the Nazis, but most committed suicide, including its leader, Mordechai Anilewicz, putting an end to organized resistance.
About 100,000 died inside the ghetto from hunger and disease, and over 300,000 were sent to Nazi death camps, mainly at Treblinka in eastern Poland.
"We have to bear in mind that the few survivors of the uprising still living are very old people. It is maybe the last anniversary where we will be able to see them," Richard Prasquier, president of CRIF, the umbrella representative group of French Jewish organizations, told EJP, ahead of his visit to Warsaw.
Prasquier, a 62-year-old cardiologist, recalled that he was born in the Polish city of Gdansk, still speaks Polish and often visits the country.
"I remember that I was in Warsaw 15 years ago to attend ceremonies marking the 50th anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising."
"The uprising is of great symbolic signification, although it didn’t upset the military balance, because it was the first uprising in a Nazi occupied city."
In Jewish history, Prasquier said, the uprising plays a fundamental role in the memory of “guevoura” or heroism and shows "that Jews didn’t let themselves take like sheeps in a slaughterhouse."
Jewish heartland in Europe
Poland was once Europe's Jewish heartland. Before the war, about 3.5 million Jews lived in Poland, and 360,000 in Warsaw. Most perished in the Holocaust.
In 1945, Poland's surviving Jewish population numbered just 280,000. Many Polish Jews emigrated to the United States or Israel, either immediately after the war or during waves of anti-Semitism driven by Poland's communist regime in the 1950s and 1960s.
Today, Jewish life is slowly reviving in a country where more than 10,000 Jews live. But many Poles do not know that they are Jewish.
"Today there is a new Poland emerging, which is a member of the EU and is opposing deeply rooted anti-Semitic stereotypes in some fringes of the population," Prasquier told EJP, mentioning as the most prominent example the anti-Semitic Catholic Radio Marija station.
"Next week we will show our support for this new Poland," he added.
He recalled the fact that despite dramas in the relations between Jews and Poles, several thousands of Poles saved Jews during WWII.
“The role of the Jews is to shake hands with new Poland and look together at building a common history,” Prasquier said.
The French delegation is expected to meet with the Warsaw Mayor, the Culture Minister and visit the Museum of the History of Polish Jews.
The museum, a 130 million dollar complex currently being built in the heart of the former Warsaw Ghetto, will tell the story of how Jews in Poland lived, thrived and shaped the society around them.
During his official visit to Israel earlier this week, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk stressed Poland's strong ties to Israel by evoking the common suffering of Poles and Jews under the Nazis.
"Despite the history having been many times a curse both for the Poles and for the Jews, Poland is interested in building a joint future with Israel," he said.
The anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising is among the top stories in Polish media. It is also very much in evidence in the streets of major Polish cities, with hundreds of billboards designed specially for the occasion by prominent photo artist Ryszard Horowitz.
On Friday, the Polish parliament honoured the memory of the Jewish fighters who led the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The legislators said they wanted to pay homage to "all the victims and heroes of the uprising, whose sacrifice merits the highest admiration, respect and memory."