US Vice President JD Vance will attend commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, a Polish government source has told TVP World.
But Polish officials involved in the preparations of the ceremonies said they could not confirm that Vance would be present.
With speculation mounting as to how Donald Trump’s presidency will impact Europe, NATO and the war in Ukraine, Vance’s visit would come at a critical time for transatlantic relations.
The commemoration ceremony will take place on January 27, exactly 80 years after the Red Army liberated the most infamous of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps and one week after Vance was sworn into office.
However, the vice president, if he attends, will not speak at the ceremony. Organizers have already confirmed that events will be “focused on the survivors,” with political figureheads attending as listeners rather than speakers.
Piotr Cywiński, the director of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Museum, told Poland’s PAP press agency that over 50 survivors would be in attendance and that their voices would take precedence.
“We want to focus on the last survivors that are among us and on their history, their pain, their trauma and their way to offer us some difficult moral obligations for the present,” said Cywiński, adding that this would likely be the last major anniversary with so many survivors present.
Yet while politics are set to take a back seat, the build-up has been tainted by disagreements over the prospect of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, attending the event.
In November, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his defense minister over alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s war with the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
Although aides have since confirmed that Netanyahu will not attend, the Polish government found itself lambasted after assuring his office that Israeli officials would be afforded safe passage in Poland.
In response, the London-based International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) warned Polish officials that it would take legal action if Poland “shielded [Israeli] individuals accused of such crimes from justice.”
More than 50 international delegations will participate in the ceremony, with attendees set to include Britain’s King Charles III, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Spain’s King Felipe VI.
Auschwitz, situated near the southwestern Polish town of Oświęcim, was liberated by Soviet forces on January 27, 1945.
Out of approximately 1.3 million people sent to the camp, at least 1.1 million were murdered, most of them Jewish. Only about 7,000 were liberated.
