The Simon Wiesenthal Center is considering issuing a travel advisory for world Jewry in response to Poland’s new ‘Holocaust Law’ and the anti-Semitism it has unleashed in the country.
The travel advisory would urge Jews to limit their travel to Poland “only to visit ancestral graves and Holocaust-era Death Camps,” said Rabbis Marvin Hier, dean and founder and Abraham Cooper, associate dean and director of global social action.
The two released a statement from the Center, which teaches the lessons of the Nazi Holocaust.
“We would take such action with great reluctance,” the statement read. “We are not enemies of Poland. Our Center has brought hundreds of Jewish and non-Jewish leaders on dozens of missions over the past four decades.
“Indeed, the Simon Wiesenthal Center has a long history of solidarity with the forces of democracy in Poland dating back to 1983 when our delegation traveled to Poland to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It came at a time when Poland was under martial law by the communist regime,” Hier and Cooper said.
“We teach the millions of visitors to our Museum of Tolerance about Righteous Gentiles, including the thousands of Poles who saved Jews during the Shoah, and the Wiesenthal Center has honored WWII Polish hero, Jan Karski and hosted democracy hero Lech Walesa,” they said.
“But in 2018, we fear for a Poland that has now seen the history of the Holocaust recast by political forces who seek to bury the ugly past that includes the murder of Jews by Poles during the Holocaust and in the immediate aftermath of WWII.”
“If the anti-Semitism unleashed continues unabated, Jews will face increasing threats,” they warned, adding that the Center will be closely monitoring the situation in the coming weeks and months “and will act accordingly.
