WARSAW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 25th July, 2023) Polish President Andrzej Duda has signed a bill ratifying an intergovernmental agreement between Poland and Israel on memorial tours to Poland for Israeli high school students, his office said on Tuesday.
Warsaw and Tel Aviv have long discussed security measures for high school trips to sites in Poland that were used as concentration camps during World War II. Israel insisted that the tourist groups be accompanied by armed Israeli guards, while Poland said it was not necessary. The trips were suspended in 2019, following a deterioration in relations between the two countries.
"President Andrzej Duda on Monday signed the bill on ratification of the agreement between the Polish and Israeli governments, which regulates the rules for organizing trips of Israeli youth to Poland," the presidential office said in a statement.
Poland and Israel signed an agreement this spring that sets out the principles for organizing educational trips to Poland and provides for the possibility of arranging similar trips to Israel. The Polish parliament ratified the agreement in April.
"Thanks to the organization of these educational trips, young people from both countries, the next generations of youth, will have the opportunity to learn about the history of their nations, including the history of the Holocaust and the crimes committed (during) World War II," the president's office said.
Israel and Poland have had turbulent relations in recent years. In the summer of 2021, Duda signed a controversial law affecting, among other things, the restitution rights of Jewish victims of World War II. In August, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid announced the recall of Israel's ambassador to Warsaw after the law went into effect.
In July 2022, Duda announced that Poland and Israel had initiated the process of normalizing bilateral relations and would mutually reinstate their ambassadors.
In October 2022, however, tensions flared again over Poland's suspension of Holocaust educational trips for Israeli students due to the presence of armed guards. Relations began to thaw again after Warsaw proposed on February 8 that Israel resume Holocaust memorial tours in the country for Israeli high school students.
