An Israeli delegation visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland was told to remove their Israeli flags by a local police officer on Thursday, Ynet reported.
The group was made up of 180 IDF and security personnel who are part of the "Witnesses in Uniform" program that dedicates itself to commemorating the Holocaust.
According to Ynet, partway through their flag march at the gates to the concentration camp, a Polish officer halted the ceremony and demanded that the group take down any Israeli flags. Staff and senior officers from the group attempted to reason with the Polish officer, but eventually the delegation's officer instructed the flag-bearers to lower the standards.
“Every year, delegations enter with flags," B., a member of the group, told Ynet. "There are iconic photos of uniformed officers with flags at Birkenau. We believe this stems from a mix of antisemitism and an attempt to reshape the historical narrative.”
"No uniformed ceremony has ever been stopped mid-way. Not in the forests, not in Treblinka, Warsaw, or Majdanek. We always had flagbearers leading."
B. said that the incident, which forced them "to abandon a long-standing tradition," deeply affected the group and that "losing a significant part of it hurt us all."
This incident comes nearly three weeks after far-right Polish politician Grzegorz Braun denied the existence of gas chambers in Auschwitz during a radio interview, and that the museum promotes "pseudo-history."