The largest Knesset delegation to date, numbering 54 MKs, left for Poland on Monday morning, where its members will mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day by holding a special ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Over 1,000 people, including dozens of foreign dignitaries, are expected to participate in the ceremony. Coalition Chairman MK Yariv Levin (Likud) and Opposition Leader MK Isaac Herzog (Labor) will head the mission. Knesset Speaker MK Yuli Edelstein (Likud), who was meant to lead the delegation, canceled his participation following his wife's death on Thursday night. Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) and fellow party member Housing Minister Uri Ariel, as well as Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver (Yisrael Beytenu) and Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz (Hatnuah) are also participating in the mission. All of the major factions of the legislature are represented in the delegation, excluding Kadima, Hadash and the Arab parties. Participants include MK Issawi Frej (Meretz), who is Muslim and MK Hamad Amar (Yisrael Beytenu), who is Druze. The Israeli delegation also includes 24 Holocaust survivors, as well as State Comptroller Yosef Shapira, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, Chief Ashkenazi Rabbi David Lau and Yad Vashem Directorate Chairman Avner Shalev. Over the past two days several ministers and MKs canceled their participation in the delegation, including Education Minister Shay Piron (Yesh Atid), fellow party member Welfare and Social Services Minister Meir Cohen, MK Yoni Chetboun (Habayit Hayehudi) and MK Shelly Yachimovich (Labor). Traveling in two planes, the Israeli mission was scheduled to land in the Krakow airbase, from which it was to travel to the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. After touring the premises, the ministers will walk from Auschwitz to Birkenau, where the ceremony is set to be held. Representatives of the Polish government are scheduled to speak at the ceremony. On Monday evening, the Israeli MKs will meet with several Polish parliamentarians, as well as with American, Canadian and European officials. Levin is scheduled to speak at the event, as is Polish Parliament Vice President Cezary Grabarczyk. Each MK will then address those in attendance, in a series of one-minute addresses. The MKs will then attend a dinner hosted by the World Zionist Organization and the Depths Organization for Spiritual Israel. "We will walk through the gates of this horrid place, the survivors of this inferno by our side, to honor the victims and say, in a loud and clear voice: Am Yisrael Chai [the nation of Israel lives on]," Levin said Sunday. "We will be traveling from Jerusalem to this Valley of Tears, this place that represents our greatest pain and sorrow," Herzog said. "Words cannot express the magnitude of our emotions. We are going there to remember and to remind others, to learn and to teach a lesson, to light memorial candles and say a silent Yizkor prayer," he said, referring to the Jewish prayer of remembrance. The delegation is set to return to Israel on Tuesday morning.
Knesset delegation holds special session in Auschwitz
Some 54 MKs, high-ranking Israeli officials and 24 Holocaust survivors to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day in a special ceremony at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp • MK Levin: We're here to say, in a loud and clear voice, Am Yisrael Chai.
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