10 April 2023
Yad Vashem values the importance of group visits from Israel to Poland to study the Holocaust and preserve its memory. However, it is essential that these groups be accompanied by appropriate preparation, guidance, and processing while maintaining complete historical accuracy, including the role of Poles in the persecution, handing in, and murder of Jews during the Holocaust, as well as in acts of rescue. The recent agreement to renew educational visits to Poland does not appear to dictate or limit their operation in this respect.
Nevertheless, the annex of the agreement contains a list of sites, compiled without Yad Vashem, which includes problematic sites that should not be visited in an educational context. In any case, the agreement does not mandate visiting these sites.
Yad Vashem will not be involved in group visits to any site suspected of distorting the events of the Holocaust or presenting a historically inaccurate narrative. We believe that all educational visits from Israel to Poland in the future will be conducted accordingly.
