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Few know that Israelis own the exquisite Warsaw Hilton Hotel, inaugurated a day after Holocaust Memorial Day right next to where the Warsaw ghetto used to be. How do the entrepreneurs view Jewish enterprises in the Warsaw valley of death? What do Poles and Holocaust survivors have to say about that?

Tani Goldstein |Published: 04.28.07 , 18:54

Warsaw - The Hilton Hotel inauguration ceremony looked like so many events where businesses are launched worldwide. The leaders of the Polish business community and local celebrities gathered in the hotel conference room. They cheered the entrepreneur who cut the red ribbon, listened to festive speeches, emptied champagne bottles, ate delicious snacks, and danced till dawn.

Next to Polish and European dignitaries, the event was also attended by some 200 Israelis for whom there was nothing usual about this event, because the new hotel is located a 10-minute walk away from where the Warsaw Ghetto used to stand in World War 2.

The Warsaw Hilton

In an unusual move, the owners of Elran Company, Gadi and Dori Dankner, decided to hold the inauguration ceremony on the day after Holocaust Memorial Day. "There was nothing accidental about the date we set for this," Gadi Dankner related. "We actually wanted to hold the ceremony at the end of Holocaust Memorial Day, but for reasons we could not control, we had to put it off by a day."

On Holocaust Memorial Day, the Dankners took their Israeli guests - family members, friends, shareholders, employees, partners, clients, and reporters - on an eerie tour that started at what remained of the Warsaw Ghetto, through the Treblinka concentration camp, to Atlas Company construction sites in Poland, and ended at the hotel inauguration. "Now, that we saw all those things," emotional Gadi Dankner told his guests, "We have to go on living. We must succeed and be happy. We have to show them."

'To spite them'

The ceremony was attended by, among others, Holocaust survivors, including older Israelis who fled Poland in the 1930s and lost their families there, and second-generation survivors such as myself. The contradiction between the horrors of the past and the splendor of today, between the horrid tales of the past and the gay reality of the present, was hard to ignore.

How could you do that? I asked Gadi Dankner. How could you build a resort in a place like this?

"It was very hard," he said. "This place is forever cursed. You cannot just feel the same here. I deliberated a lot and there were moments I considered dropping the deal. Eventually the scales were tipped by my feeling that I want to spite them. I wanted to come, 60 years after, from a position of power and say, 'we are here' - and not because we 'won'; that's a wrong expression - but we may say that we are here because we have overcome, we have a state of our own, and we come here not as persecuted refugees, but as equal partners. We do not forgive, we do not forget, but we come back."

Are you not reverting to the pre-Holocaust times, appearing here again as greedy Jews who want to make money where we do not belong?

"I hope it is not like that. I feel we come here from a different, stronger place."

Israelis play an important role in Poland's construction drive

Hilton Hotel is just a small part of the construction and economic enterprising drive that has been sweeping Poland in recent years. Warsaw - until a decade ago, just a Soviet town of gray buildings - has turned into a thriving Western city. Israelis who tour the ghetto and hear horror stories of what went on there actually look at a neighborhood whose residents lead the good life.

The building that housed the Judenrat command then, now houses a drugstore and a gym, and a huge shopping mall is being built across from the Jewish cemetery, right where the ghetto walls watched tens of thousands bodies dumped in a big hole in the ground.

Israelis play an important role in the Polish construction drive, as Israeli contractors invest billions and build hundreds residential and office buildings, shopping malls, and hotels. Yosi Levi, deputy Israeli ambassador in Poland, estimated that Israeli entrepreneurs are responsible for some 10 percent of the new Warsaw buildings. Polish businessmen believe it is "only" 5 percent.

How do the Poles view the fact that Jewish Israelis are investing in their country again?

"The Poles have two typical reactions," said Polish PR expert Tokoz Wrubel. "Some are pleased with that. I, for example, am very happy because, first, it is a good thing that Poland is now part of the West and attracts foreigners and their investments. Second, I see an opportunity here to turn a new leaf in the relations between Poland and the Jews.

Warsaw Ghetto. A 10-minute walk

"I know that Poland has a very bad reputation in Israel, and I can understand why. I accept that. I would understand a Jewish entrepreneur who tells me that he will never do business in Poland. I am moved by the fact that Israelis are investing here nevertheless because it offers a possibility for a change of attitude. If I may use a term from my professional world, Poland as a 'brand-name' has a poor reputation in Israel, and the Israelis who do business here are helping improve its image. Third, I am glad because the Jews collect token compensation for everything that was done to them

"As I said, this is my view, and it is typical of people from my social background - that is, educated residents of the big cities. Frankly, less educated Poles react differently. They have a problem with foreign investors in general and Jewish investments are particularly problematic for them."

How do Holocaust survivors view Israeli enterprises in Poland?

"Bless their hearts," said Noah Flug, chairman of the Holocaust Survivors Roof Organization in Israel. "Business is not about emotions. If we were to ban business wherever Jews were murdered, we would not be able to do business anywhere. Jews were killed in the Czech Republic too, so we should not build there? The truth is that the fact that the Dankners flew their guests to the hotel inauguration on Holocaust Memorial Day was a bit insensitive, even if they meant well. The construction enterprise, however, is legitimate."

Martin Twardovsky, Hotel sales manager, has a different idea. "Personally, I am thrilled and excited about the fact that Jews own this hotel, and I proudly tell our clients about it," he said. "This is coming a full circle. It is an opportunity for the Jews to come here and see that Poland is home for them."