Polish media had speculated that the Israeli premier was not traveling for the event due to fear of arrest
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu never planned to attend next month’s 80th year anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem said on Sunday.
The clarification comes after speculation in Polish media that the Israeli premier was not traveling to the event due to fear of arrest after Władysław Teofil Bartoszewski, secretary of state in the Polish Foreign Ministry, said Warsaw would follow through on the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant over allegations of war crimes in the 15-month war against Hamas in Gaza.
Bartoszewski, whose late father, former Foreign Minister Władysław Bartoszewski, was a prisoner in Auschwitz in 1940-41 and participated in the Polish resistance’s 1944 Warsaw Uprising, is organizing the memorial. After his release from the German camp in 1941, the elder Bartoszewski was a member of the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews. Yad Vashem recognized him as a Righteous Among the Nations.