Israeli envoy joins Poles to mark 75 years since Treblinka revolt
Widow of one of few who managed to survive 1943 uprising urges authorities to build proper museum at death camp site
WARSAW, Poland — Israel’s ambassador to Poland Anna Azari joined Polish officials and the relatives of former Treblinka death camp inmates in marking the 75th anniversary of a revolt by Jewish prisoners Thursday.
Ada Krystyna Willenberg, whose late husband, Samuel Willenberg, was one of the few uprising participants to survive Treblinka, appealed Thursday for a proper museum to be built at the former site of the Nazi German camp.
The current memorial to the 900,000 Jews who were killed at Treblinka between 1941 and 1944 is a symbolic graveyard with boulders bearing the names of places in Europe where the victims lived before they were sent to the camp in occupied Poland.
The Nazis operated multiple gas chambers at Treblinka, considered the deadliest Nazi camp after Auschwitz.
During the August 2, 1943 revolt, prisoners took guns from a storeroom and attacked camp guards. About 300 inmates managed to escape, but fewer than 100 avoided being caught and survived.
The ceremony occurred as Poland’s new envoy to Israel presented his credentials to president Rueven Rivlin in Jerusalem and was rebuked over Warsaw’s controversial Holocaust law.
“The main difference between us is that we leave the facts of history to the historians,” Rivlin told a stone-faced Ambassador Marek Magierowski. “We are not letting any politician interfere or be involved with or creating the facts of history.”
The law had originally stipulated fines for people accusing the Polish people of complicity in Nazi Holocaust crimes, but was amended after an outcry from Israel. The new version removes the penalties, but leaves the offense in place.
Raphael Ahren contributed to this report.
