Sa'ar to join PM at Auschwitz

Sa'ar will meet with his Polish counterpart to discuss ways to increase cooperation between the education ministries of Israel and Poland.

By BEN HARTMAN
gideon saar speaks 298 (photo credit: Ori Porat)
gideon saar speaks 298
(photo credit: Ori Porat)
Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar will visit Poland on Monday ahead of ceremonies to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, which falls on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by the Soviet Army on January 27, 1945.
During his visit, Sa'ar will meet with his Polish counterpart, Education Minister Katarzyna Hall, in which they are expected to discuss ways to increase cooperation between the education ministries of Israel and Poland, a press release issued on Sunday by the Education Ministry read.
Sa'ar is also scheduled to address a conference on education and the Holocaust to be attended by Hall and an additional 34 education ministers, deputy ministers, and academics from across the globe.
Auschwitz was built by Nazi Germany in 1940 outside the Polish city of Oswiecim. By 1942, it had become the largest Nazi death camp, and by the time it was liberated in 1945, well over a million prisoners were murdered there, the overwhelming majority of them Jews.
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu will also visit Auschwitz on Wednesday to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, and he and Sa'ar will take part in a ceremony with Holocaust survivors to remember victims of the death camp, including a candlelit march to the Monument of Victims. Netanyahu will also meet with Polish leaders in Warsaw during his visit.