1,100 Russian Jews at Auschwitz to hear of Polish rescue, betrayal of Jews

Russia’s main Jewish group is sending its largest delegation ever to the former Nazi death camp of Auschwitz in Poland, where participants will hear about Polish bravery but also complicity in the Holocaust, a top rabbi from Moscow says.

The Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia will send 1,100 teenagers and young adults to Auschwitz on April 30 as part of its annual Eurostars weeklong trip, which brings Russian Jews to Western Europe, Federation President Alexander Boroda tells JTA. “It’s our largest delegation so far,” he says.

At the state-run museum, the participants in the program, which began in 2006, will learn about “the death machine” that the Nazis operated to kill approximately four million Jews at Auschwitz alone, says Boroda, a Chabad rabbi. They will hear about the efforts of many Poles to save Jews from the genocide. But they also will be taught about “Polish traitors who betrayed Jews to the Nazis and helped the Nazis,” he says.

Both rescue and betrayal, Boroda adds, occurred in Poland on a larger scale than any other European country.

The treatment of complicity by Poles in the Holocaust is a sensitive issue in Poland, further complicated by the passing in January of controversial legislation in Warsaw that criminalizes blaming the Polish nation or Poles for Nazi crimes.

— JTA