Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski will pay his first official visit to Israel as president next week.
After a first visit to Israel in 2009 but then as Speaker of the Polish parliament, he will now be hosted by Israel’s President Shimon Peres and meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein and Opposition leader Shelly Yachimovich.
During their meeting in 2009, President Peres and Bronislaw Komorowski discussed about the return of Jewish possessions remaining in Poland after WWII as well as youth exchange between Israel and Poland.
At that time, Komorowski appraised that young Israelis when coming to Poland should not only visit the places remembering the Holocaust but also get in personal contact with Poles of the same age. On the other hand, Komorowski said, many Poles when travelling to Israel just visit the places of Christianity without getting in touch with the Jewish culture.
This is about to change today, said Polish Ambassador to Israel, Jacek Chodorowicz, and related to exchange projects with students spending time in each other’s countries. He spoke about 130,000 Poles travelling to Israel in the past year and this number of tourists is expected to rise with the new low cost flight connection between Warsaw and Tel Aviv.
Poland considers its President’s visit to Israel as very important, the Ambassador told The Jerusalem Post. With regard to exhibitions in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem on the common past of Jews and Poles, he said it is important to “look to the future while not forgetting the past”.
As fourth Polish President visiting the Jewish state, Bronislaw Komorowski gets into line with the Israel-friendly politics of his predecessors Walesa, Kwasniewski and Kaczynski.
In 1991, Lech Walesa was the first Polish President in the history of Israel to pay an official visit to the Jewish state. In his speech in front of the Knesset he asked forgiveness for years of anti-Semitism in Poland that culminated during the Holocaust.
"Here in Israel, in the cradle of our culture and the land of your revival, I am asking your forgiveness," Walesa said. "I ask for justice on behalf of the Polish people and that you remember the good things as well," Walesa then said, adding:"We want to build a free Poland for all, regardless of religion or race. Let us learn from you."
Earlier this week, Jewish groups mourned the death of former Prime Minister and Solidarity member Tadeusz Mazowiecki at the age of 86. One of Komorowski’s key advisors, he played a central role in the full restoration of diplomatic ties between Poland and Israel in 1990.
In the past decades, Polish-Jewish relations have been marked both by convergence and conflicts. Poland broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967 in the aftermath of the Six Day War. During the 1968 March events in the People's Republic of Poland, around 15,000 Poles of Jewish origin emigrated in the wake of the anti-Semitic “Żydokomuna” propaganda. It blamed officials of Jewish descent "for a major part, if not all, of the crimes and horrors of the Stalinist period."
Today, Poland is said to be one of Israel’s strongest allies within the European Union. An example of cooperation is the Israel-Poland Chamber of Commerce, established in 1988. It is one of the organizers of the binational Economic and Business Cooperation Forum that President Komorowski will attend in Tel Aviv on 6 November.