Israeli President Reuven Rivlin flies to Poland on Monday for the inauguration of a Warsaw Jewish museum,  meetings with his Polish counterpart and other senior officials, his office said.  

“Later on Monday, President Rivlin will depart for Poland, on his first official visit abroad as president, at the invitation of the president of Poland, Bronislaw Komorowski,” it said.

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is to officially open to the public on Tuesday.

“The museum stands in what was once the heart of Jewish Warsaw – an area which the Nazis turned into the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II,” its website writes in English.

According to Haaretz the building, designed by Finnish architects, cost $70 million while the permanent exhibition it houses cost $43,600, raised by international donors.

Despite its location, it is not a Holocaust museum, the paper says, quoting an unidentified spokesman.

“We’re not concentrating on one period like other Jewish museums worldwide – we’re also dealing with life before and after the Holocaust,” he said.

Rivlin was sworn in on July 24.

A lawyer by profession, Rivlin replaced Shimon Peres at the end of his seven-year-term. 

AFP contributed to this report.