European Parliament (EP) President Martin Schulz will be the EU’s official representative at commemorations for the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Friday, as part of a two-day official visit to Poland.
The focal point of his trip to the Polish capital will be an official ceremony hosted by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski at the Monument to the Ghetto House Heroes Friday morning, as part of the Eastern European country’s month-long programme of tributes to the hundreds of Jewish fighters who resisted the Nazis in 1943 as part of a doomed revolt.
The commemorations began Sunday, as Warsaw residents responded to calls from the Polish authorities to voluntarily clean the city’s Jewish cemetery in honour of the slain Jewish resistance fighters, following which the Polish Chief Rabbi unveiled a mezuzah (Jewish ritual parchment) at the entrance to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which will open its doors for the first time Friday during Schulz’s visit.
The EP head is scheduled to tour the new monument to the country’s formerly vibrant Jewish community immediately following the Ghetto Uprising ceremony. The final day of his visit Saturday will see him visit the site of the former Nazi German death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, before leaving the country.
As well as meeting with senior government and parliamentary officials and giving a press conference at the Sejm, Poland’s lower house of Parliament, Schulz will also attend a concert performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Polish National Opera Thursday night to coincide with the 70th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was this year chosen as the theme of the annual International Holocaust Memorial Day.
The Warsaw Uprising was conceived to coincide with the Soviet Red Army’s march on Nazi Germany, after Poland had lived through four years of Nazi occupation, but when the Soviet’s advance halted, the Polish resistance was forced to fight single-handedly for 63 days, allowing German troops to regroup and defeat the revolt.
House-to-house searches were carried out by German forces to expose hidden Jews and approximately 25% of Warsaw’s infrastructure was destroyed.