Israeli flags are a common sight at Auschwitz-Birkenau.AFP / Getty Images
So just how bad did things get for worldwide Jewry in 2025, someone might ask in a future history class. So bad, the answer might go, that Israeli flags weren’t allowed at Auschwitz.
So, pretty bad. Ugly bad.
While not exactly accurate, that is what a group of Israelis felt they experienced when visiting the site of the concentration camp – now a huge, sprawling museum of horrors, near Oswiecim, Poland. Here about 1.1-million people were murdered by Nazis, who had built high-efficiency gas chambers in German-occupied Poland for that purpose. Most of the victims were Jewish, murdered for that sole fact.
So imagine you’re a Jewish member of an Israeli delegation, visiting with your emotions and your history and your flags, and you are stopped at the entrance. The flags, the group understood, were the problem.
Israeli flags – as controversial as they might be at this moment – are a common sight at Auschwitz-Birkenau. They are particularly pervasive during the March of the Living, when Jewish people from around the world visit on Holocaust Remembrance Day and parade solemnly from Auschwitz to Birkenau. When I first heard about last week’s flag controversy, the image that immediately came to mind was of a young March participant walking along the railway tracks that once led to death, wearing an Israeli flag as a cape.
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Here’s what actually happened last week: A group of 180 Israeli army officers and security officials arrived at the gates of Birkenau for a commemoration known as “Witnesses in Uniform” and were told they could not enter carrying the flags, according to Ynet news. Discussions with local officials ensued, and finally, the group entered without their flags.
One participant told Ynet news that he believed the incident stemmed from antisemitism and an attempt to reshape the historical narrative.
The real issue, according to the museum, was that the event had not been disclosed or approved in advance.
“The problem was not about the flags themselves, which are allowed, but about organizing ceremonies on the grounds of the memorial site, during which flags and banners on wooden poles are sometimes brought in,” Auschwitz Museum spokesperson Bartosz Bartyzel explained by email. “It is a matter of ensuring the safety of visitors and ceremony participants.”
The museum stated on X that organizers failed to follow proper procedures. “Under no circumstances can the grounds of the former camp be a space for unco-ordinated manifestations or ceremonies – even those carried out with good intentions.”
Even if the optics aren’t great, this is fair.
On social media, Israel’s ambassador to Poland called this a misunderstanding, dismissing claims of antisemitism and humiliation.
Still, consider for a moment what it must have felt like for those Jews denied entry. To Auschwitz! Among them surely were descendants of Holocaust survivors, perhaps the children or grandchildren of people who had survived – or were murdered in – this very place.
This is hardly the most concerning thing happening in the world right now regarding the State of Israel. But the delegation’s response and the social media outrage are indicative of the Jewish experience in 2025.
Mr. Bartyzel did not answer my question about whether this has happened before. Have unauthorized Israeli flags entered the site previously by people marching in? Has anyone been forced to return their flags to their vehicles and then enter without them? Has such an order been given before Israel became the global pariah it is now? If so, I missed the global outrage.
Today, the Jewish community is on high alert, frightened that antisemitism is lurking around every corner. Here in Canada, B’nai Brith reports that antisemitism has reached “perilous, record-setting heights.” The same thing is happening in the U.S., the U.K., around the world.
In the midst of this, it is easy for Jews to assume antisemitic intent. While this is often true, it is not always the case. We need to be thoughtful in each circumstance.
That said, if there is a spot where the consequences of antisemitism can be felt viscerally, it is at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the absolute worst happened.
I visited the site in 1998 during the March of the Living, with family members including my mother, who survived Birkenau. It was a difficult day for her, but she drew comfort from not just her own descendants, but from seeing so many young Jews from around the world – and the sea of Israeli flags. They were a symbol of what rose from all she had lost: her parents, her little brother, her home, every single possession, her freedom, her youth, her education, her health, her life as she had known it.
Nobody should have to experience such staggering losses. Nobody.