KRAKOW (JTA) — A delegation of some 180 Israeli soldiers held direct encounter sessions with local Jewish and non-Jewish civilians in Krakow during a five-day study trip to Poland.
The visit was part of Witnesses in Uniform, a program that has sent hundreds of Israeli soldiers to Poland to learn about Holocaust history onsite. The soldiers returned home at the end of last week.
The group visited the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes’ Memorial as well as the Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz concentration camps.
In Krakow, the encounter and discussion groups with civilians marked the first time that the program had broadened its scope to explore issues of current Polish-Jewish relations, including the post-communist revival of Jewish communal life.
The soldiers met with about 30 Polish Jews and non-Jews, as well as about 10 foreign students studying the Holocaust at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University.
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