Israeli F-15s to fly over Auschwitz in Holocaust memorial

JERUSALEM (AFP) Aug 25, 2003
Three Israeli F-15s jets will next month fly over the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps in Poland to honor the six million Jewish victims of the Nazis, the Israeli army said Monday.

The flights on September 4 will be commanded by an air force general and piloted by children or grandchildren of Holocaust survivors whose families perished in Poland and Hungary.

About 1.1 million Jews from European countries occupied by Germany's Nazi regime were killed at Auschwitz during the Second World War.

The Israeli jets emblazoned with the Star of David will take off from Radom airbase, about 250 kilometres (about 150 miles) away, where they have been invited to commemorate the 85th anniversary of the creation of modern Poland.

Air forces from all the countries that fought in the Second World War have been invited to the event which is expected to attract about 200,000 spectators.

WAR.WIRE