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Overflight. F-15s over the Auschwitz II-Birkenau site.
Three IAF F-15s flew over the heads of more than 100 Israel soldiers who were paying tribute to the victims of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi camp yesterday.
The soldiers from Israel sang their national anthem at the site of the Birkenau camp and paid their respects to the victims at the international monument.
The administration of the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum defined the overflight as a “demonstration of Israel’s military power.” Nor did the International Auschwitz Council support this method of paying tribute to the victims. “A military airplane is no dove of peace. It should not fly there even for the noblest of purposes,” Jerzy Wróblewski, director of the Auschwitz Museum, told a Gazeta Wyborcza reporter.
Szewach Weiss, ambassador of Israel in Poland, commented on the position of the Museum and the Council by saying that “this was a grandson saying farewell to the remains of his murdered grandmother. Anyone who talks about ‘power’ cannot feel this. This was a display of solidarity.” Weiss stressed that the overflight was of only symbolic dimensions.
It was still not certain last Thursday morning that the flight would take place. The Polish Ministry of National Defense approved the “Memorial Flight.” Two Polish aircraft had been slated to join the fighters from Israel. Polish Airports spokeswoman Edyta Mikołajczyk stated before noon that the flight had been cancelled due to poor meteorological conditions. In the end, the Polish fighters did not fly, but the Israeli F-15s made a pass several hundred meters above the unloading platform or “ramp” at the Birkenau camp.
The Israel Air Force F-15s were returning home after taking part in an airshow at Radom, Poland, the previous weekend.
Forum Internet Magazin "Jews - Poles - Christians", 05.09.2003/MT
