Israel cancels youth trips to Poland over Holocaust studies

By EMILY ROSE
Associate Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has canceled youth Holocaust-education trips to Poland this summer. Foreign Minister Yair Lapid says the move was taken because the Polish government is trying to control the curriculum taught to Israeli children. The decision has reignited longstanding tensions between the two countries over Poland’s treatment of its Jewish citizens during the Holocaust. Poland says it was a victim of the Nazis and it should not be blamed for the crimes of Nazi occupiers committed on the soil of occupied Poland. But historians have found ample evidence that many Polish individuals collaborated with the Nazis. Lapid said on Wednesday that Poland wanted to “dictate” what Israeli students would learn, and that he found that unacceptable.