Following the publication in "Israel Today", Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi ordered a freeze on the decision to take the officers' trips "witnesses in uniform" to Lithuania, instead of to Poland.
The decision was revealed at the beginning of the month in "Israel Today", and provoked outrage in the IDF and outside it. Maj. Gen. and Minister Elazar Stern, who during his time as chief education officer began the officers' travels to Poland, said that "the Holocaust took place in Poland and nowhere else.
"There is no justification for traveling to Lithuania more than to the Netherlands, France or any other country in Europe, and if you do not travel to Poland - there is no reason to travel anywhere else."
An IDF delegation in the Auschwitz camp, Photo: Courtesy of the IDF
Stern even appealed to Defense Minister Bnei Gantz to freeze the decision.
But it turned out that Gantz did not approve the decision at all, as required, as did Chief of Staff Kochavi, who discussed it only after the publication in "Israel Today." To Poland, as it was before.
"Witnesses in Uniform" campaigns have been going on for more than 20 years, and are attended by officers, trainees in various courses, civilian IDF employees and sometimes reservists.
These trips include tours of Warsaw and the concentration and extermination camps, as well as a meeting with Holocaust survivors.
The trips are accompanied by instructors from Yad Vashem, and over the years tens of thousands of uniformed people have participated in them.
Following the success of the military plan, the Israel Police and the GSS also began sending delegations on similar trips to Poland.
Ganz and Stars.
The Minister of Defense was also not updated on the change, Photo: Ariel Hermoni - Ministry of Defense
These voyages were stopped two years ago, with the outbreak of the corona.
Recently, the IDF sought to renew them, but disagreements with the Polish hosts, and reservations in the Foreign Ministry over the laws regarding the property of Jews who perished in the Holocaust, led to the decision to divert trips from Poland to Lithuania. For a tour of Lithuania, to prepare the ground for the arrival of the first military delegations, which were planned to leave for Lithuania as early as Holocaust Remembrance Day next month.
Senior officials estimated this week that a solution would eventually be found that would allow the delegations to return to Poland.
They pointed to the war in Ukraine, and the central role that Poland plays in the absorption of Ukrainian refugees, as "bridges that would allow for normalization of relations with Poland in general, and the return of delegations in particular."
The IDF spokesman responded:
"The 'Witnesses in Uniform' campaign is a key pillar in the commemoration of the Holocaust in the IDF.
"The IDF recently issued a recommendation to hold the trips to Lithuania instead of Poland. The chief of staff instructed to exhaust the efforts to return the trips to Poland, so at the moment their transfer to Lithuania has not been approved."
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