JTA - The presidents of Israel and Poland will take part in the March of the Living in the former Auschwitz death camp.
The two presidents agreed to jointly participate in the ceremony on April 12 during telephone conversation last month, the head of the Cabinet of the Polish President, Krzysztof Szczerski, announced on Monday.
After the ceremonies in Auschwitz, talks between the two presidents will take place in Oświęcim.
Szczerski noted that the plans for the April ceremony and meeting was one of the topics of his meeting on Monday with the Israeli ambassador to Poland, Anna Azari.
The March of the Living will traverse a three-kilometer trail from the main gate of the former Auschwitz camp to the former Birkenau camp, where a ceremony commemorating the victims of the Holocaust will take place next to the ruins of the largest crematoria. This year the event falls on the 30th anniversary of the first march.
The Polish president said on Monday in an interview for Polish television that he was "appalled" by the behavior of the Israeli ambassador, who referred during the weekend ceremony for the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to a recent bill to outlaw mention of Poland's role in the Holocaust or "Polish death camps."
"There were Poles who were prisoners of this camp, and in their presence these words were said. For me, this whole situation was surprising, I do not understand this situation," he said.
He added that for the Polish side the law is clear and unambiguous, and the reaction of Israel may be the result of "distortions or misinformation."
"We absolutely can’t back down. We have the right to defend the historical truth," he also said.
The Poles claim that the concentration camps in Poland were built and run by the Nazis after they conquered the country, omitting the cooperation of local Poles and their looting of Jewish possessions, as well as incidents such as the 1946 Kielce pogrom.