I could never understand why Jews continue visiting Poland. Why should we give to a country so drenched in Jewish blood, why should a country with such a rich history of anti-Semitism be worthy of being graced with our presence, money, or even attention?
If you ask me, it should be a wasteland for us. I understand that every year millions of people, including students and Jews, visit Poland and its historical sites and tour extermination camps like Auschwitz and Birkenau and learn more about the Holocaust. But why should this country profit off our pain, which was manufactured and triggered by them? Although there are no official statistics about the number of Jews who come to Poland each year, the Polish government’s Office of Statistics estimates that around 4% of tourists, or slightly more than 270,000 people per year, visit from Israel alone.
What makes this even more enraging is the fact that Poland seems dead-set on reconstructing the role they played during the Holocaust. It is well documented that Polish scholars face defamation suits and even criminal charges if they make any claim against Poland in the country’s recent attempt to exonerate their responsibility in killing three million Polish Jews during Nazi occupation. Until this is resolved, I see no reason to ever visit Poland.
