JERUSALEM - Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will join a commemorative march for Holocaust victims in Poland on Thursday, a trip his aides say will symbolize steadfastness in the face of rising anti-Semitism.

Sharon, Polish leaders and some 20,000 people from around the world are expected to take part in the annual walk between the former Auschwitz and Birkenau death camps, honoring the six million Jews killed in the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two.

The march, expected to be the largest ever March of the Living along the three-kilometer (1.9-mile) track, coincides with the 60th anniversary of the camps' liberation. "It's a very symbolic date because it is 60 years since the liberation of the camps and comes at a time of rising anti-Semitism when some people are questioning the very response to the Holocaust- the establishment of a Jewish state," said Raanan Gissin, an adviser to Sharon.

A Tel Aviv University report released on Wednesday found that anti-Semitic incidents had increased by 68 percent in Britain and almost 40 percent in France last year.

Calling 2004 "the most violent year in the last 15 years", the university researchers said there had been a 39 percent increase in violent attacks against Jews worldwide compared with 2003.

"Each year has degenerated further, with numbers and severity of manifestations increasing exponentially," they said.

Israel Nurtures Polish Ties

Sharon will be commemorating the Holocaust with Polish leaders on Israel's official memorial day, highlighting the warm relations the two countries have enjoyed since the fall of communism in Poland 15 years ago. Israel has agreed to iron out one area of tension with Poland, fanned by annual trips by thousands of Israeli students to ex-concentration camps and Holocaust memorials there.

Polish officials have urged Israel to broaden the itinerary of the visits to include meetings with Polish teenagers and classes about the thriving Jewish community that lived in Poland for centuries before the Holocaust.

"The Polish criticism is that the students' entire visits are focused on concentration camps ... which gives an impression that the ones who committed the Holocaust were Poles not Nazis," said an Israeli Education Ministry official.

Israel and Poland plan a joint committee to arrange visits by Israeli youths, and Israel says it will broaden its school curriculum to include lessons on Poland's rich Jewish past.

Around 3 million of Poland's 3.5 million Jews were killed during the Holocaust. About four million European Jews in total were killed in the six Nazi death camps on Polish soil.

Israel sees relations with Warsaw as a strategic asset especially since Poland entered the European Union last year.

Israeli officials say that Poland's sympathetic stance towards Israel will help balance what they consider to be a pro-Arab tilt by many West European countries in the EU.

"(Poland) tends to have a more transatlantic approach to its foreign policy. It has few economic interests in the Arab world and a small Muslim community that does not have much impact on daily life," a senior Foreign Ministry official said.