Main entrance to Auschwitz (photo credit: CC BY-SA Tulio Bertorini/Times of Israel.)

“The largest delegation of Israeli lawmakers ever to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is set to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Polish site next month,” reports the Times of Israel. “In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly set the International Holocaust Remembrance Day as January 27, the day in 1945 on which Soviet troops liberated the camp….”

“The MKs will be accompanied by other dignitaries, including State Comptroller Yosef Shapira, Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein, Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev, scholar Dina Porat and former MKs — and Holocaust survivors — Shevah Weiss and Colette Avital, in addition to some 400 Jewish and other dignitaries from Poland and Russia,” noted the Times, incorporating the report of another Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonoth. “The Israeli delegation itself, including security personnel, is expected to number some 300 people in total. There will also be 30 Holocaust survivors joining the mission. Edelstein reportedly decided to conduct the historic visit in 2014 instead of waiting for the 70th anniversary of the liberation in 2015 due to the fact that with each passing year the number of Holocaust survivors dwindles.”

“The Israeli delegation will only be in Poland for one day, taking off from Israel in two charter planes in the morning and returning at night,” the Times added.