Israeli Air Force Flight Over Auschwitz (2003)

The opportunity for the flight arose when Israeli Air Force commander Dan Halutz received an invitation to celebrations marking the 85th anniversary of the Polish Air Force.[3] Brigadier General Amir Eshel, who had harbored the idea of flying over Auschwitz for some fifteen years, recognized the occasion as a chance to fulfill that ambition.[3] He persuaded Halutz to make the proposed joint participation with the Polish Air Force conditional on receiving permission for Israeli aircraft to make an additional pass over the former death camp.[4]

The flyover was organized within the framework of the Israeli military's "Witnesses in Uniform" project, which brings IDF personnel to Holocaust sites in Poland.[2] The delegation's visit was timed to coincide with the 60th anniversary of a specific transport from Drancy, France, which had departed on September 2, 1943, and arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau on September 4 of that year. Of the deportees aboard, 661 were sent to the gas chambers within hours of arrival.[2] Among the victims commemorated at the ceremony were Sylvain Schnerb, Mercado Cohen, and the children and parents of the Atlanti family.[2]

On September 4, 2003, three Israeli Air Force F-15s flew over Auschwitz-Birkenau as part of the IDF delegation's activities in Poland.[1][2] Maariv and Globes both described the aircraft as flying at low altitude.[4][5] The flyover took place as the aircraft returned from the Polish Air Force anniversary celebrations.[5] Its execution was planned with considerable precision: Eshel later recalled that the aircraft needed to pass in exactly the right direction and at exactly the right moment to create the intended image.[3]

Eshel's aircraft carried personal objects bearing witness to the Holocaust — among them a tallit belonging to a Holocaust survivor and black-and-white photographs of family members who had been killed during the Nazi genocide.[4] Pages of Testimony for victims murdered on September 4, 1943, were also carried aboard the aircraft while victims' names were read aloud at the ceremony below.[2]

From his cockpit during the flyover, Eshel transmitted a message to the assembled delegation: "We pilots of the Air Force, flying in the skies above the camp of horrors, arose from the ashes of the millions of victims and shoulder their silent cries, salute their courage and promise to be the shield of the Jewish people and its nation Israel."[1] He also described the memorial's purpose in terms of restoring individual identity to the dead: "In commemorating the victims by reading their names, we attempt to redeem the victims from the ruins and give them back their names and faces."[2]

A photograph taken during the flyover — showing the F-15s over the grounds of Auschwitz-Birkenau — was subsequently inscribed with the words "Never again."[3] It became a fixture in senior IDF offices, and Eshel described it as the Air Force's promise to the Jewish people.[3] Eshel himself called the flight "the most significant expression of the rebirth of this people" and described fulfilling it as a personal dream he had carried for fifteen years.[3]

Eshel's father said that the Holocaust, and Eshel's relationships with survivors, were among the central motivations behind his continued military service, and that the flyover Eshel initiated deeply moved those survivors who knew of it.[6] Eshel went on to serve as IAF chief of staff from 2006 to 2008 and as IAF commander in chief from 2012 to 2017.[7]

On the twentieth anniversary of the flight, in 2023, the Israeli Air Force held a commemoration of the event. The pilots who had flown the original mission in 2003 were quoted reaffirming their message: "We rose from the ashes of millions of victims, carrying their silent cry, saluting their heroism and promising to be a protector of the Jewish people and their country, Israel."[8] In a 2014 reflection, Amos Regev placed the flight alongside the establishment and continued existence of the State of Israel as emblematic of Jewish survival and strength after the Holocaust.[9]

Accounts differ on who formally led the formation. A 2026 Jerusalem Post article identifies Amir Eshel as the leader.[10] A 2026 Times of Israel blog post attributes that role to Ido Nehoshtan.[11] Yad Vashem's contemporaneous announcement names Eshel as head of the overall delegation but does not explicitly designate a flight leader.[2] The Mako account describes Eshel and Nehoshtan as having planned the flight together.[3]

One Israeli source reported that the agreed flight altitude with the Polish side was high, but that Eshel flew at low altitude instead, and further claimed — explicitly qualifying the assertion as known only "as far as is known" — that the aircraft were armed contrary to the terms of the agreement.[4] These claims are not corroborated by other sources consulted. A Jewish Review of Books article similarly characterizes the flight as having defied Polish authorities, though no independent confirmation of that characterization was found.[12]

The flight also became a reference point in the broader historical debate over whether the Allied powers should have bombed Auschwitz during the war. Historian Yehuda Bauer criticized the notion that a hypothetical Israeli air force could have stopped the Nazi genocide, calling that idea "a total delusion," while other commentators have drawn different conclusions about Allied responsibility and the feasibility of such action.[13]