TRIP TO POLAND, MAY 2015 THE PROGRAM OF THE TOUR
Foto: Ewa Held
Day 1: Warsaw Arrival in Warsaw - transfer to the hotel Depending on the arrival time - short afternoon tour of historic Warsaw If arrival on Wednesday-start of the tour on Thursday morning- tour of historic Warsaw and the Museum of the History of Polish Jews Accommodation in Warsaw - to be confirmed Dinner at the hotel or city restaurant Theatre performance or Concert?
Foto: Renata Zawadzka-Ben Dor
Day 2: Warsaw After breakfast - full day tour: “The Warsaw Ghetto” (the former area of the Warsaw ghetto - remains of the
ghetto walls, synagogue, monuments and historical sites including the Monument to the Heroes of the
Warsaw Ghetto, the Remembrance Path, Mila 18 Monument and Umschlagplatz Monument, Jewish
cemetery, Optional – Jewish Historical Institute (exhibition and film), Optional – the Museum of the
History of Polish Jews (note one optional admission possible – according to your choice, the second one can
be scheduled on the first day depending on the arrival time) During the day free time for lunch Accommodation in Warsaw – to be confirmed Shabbat Dinner
Treblinka Concentration Camp sign by David Shankbone CC BY-SA 3.0
szylt znajduje sie w Yed Vashem
Day 3: Tykocin - Lopuchowo - Treblinka After breakfast – departure for full day tour by bus:
Tykocin: once an important trade centre owned by Polish kings, by 1800 became a typical Jewish shtetl.
Before WW2, the town had 5,000 inhabitants, half of them Jewish. All of the 2,500 Jewish residents of
Tykocin were taken to the nearby Lopuchowo forest and shot by the Nazis in the Summer of 1941. Today
Tykocin looks the same as it did before WW2 – you can still see Jewish wooden houses, one of the finest
synagogues in Poland built in 1642 (now museum) and admire the perfect harmony of both Christian and
Jewish architecture. Visit to the Tykocin synagogue
Lopuchowo: mass graves and memorial in the forest commemorating the extermination site of Tykocin Jews
Treblinka Memorial: Treblinka, established in 1941 as a forced labor camp for Poles is located 110 km
(68 miles) northeast of Warsaw. Within a year a second camp was built which became a symbol of the
extermination of the central European Jews. Opened on July 23, 1942, as the Warsaw ghetto deportation
began it resulted in total 900 thousand victims. Handled with the utmost of secrecy, surrounded by two
barbed wire fences was a scene of organized revolt of Jewish prisoners in August 1943, after which was
liquidated in October 1943. Today a symbolic memorial monument and 17 thousand stones mark the site
of Jewish tragedy…
Lunch en-route, evening return to Warsaw. Accommodation in Warsaw – to be confirmed 380 km
Foto: Wikipedia
Day 4: Warsaw – Wlodawa – Sobibor - Lublin After breakfast - departure by bus to:
Włodawa: a town in eastern Poland on the Bug River, close to the borders with Belarus and Ukraine.
Once a Jewish shtetl which had a representative in the Council of the Four Lands (central body of Jewish
authority in Poland from 1580 to 1764). Włodawa was over 70% Jewish before World War II and the
Holocaust. Situated next to the Sobibor extermination camp, Włodawa Jews were mostly rounded up and
deported there, or killed locally in any one of the German arbeitslagers (workcamps). Visit to the
Włodawa Synagogue (Wlodowa Synagogue) - an architectural complex consisting of 2 historic
synagogues and a Jewish administrative building, now preserved as a museum. The complex includes the
Włodawa Great Synagogue of 1764–74, the late 18th century Small Synagogue, and the 1928 community
building. It is "one of the best-preserved" synagogues in Poland
Sobibor Memorial - a Nazi German extermination camp located on the outskirts of the village of Sobibór.
Jews from Poland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union were
transported to Sobibór by rail and suffocated in gas chambers fed by the exhaust of large petrol engines.
One source states that up to 200,000 people were murdered at Sobibór.
Lublin – check in and dinner 330 km
Day 5: Lublin After breakfast - tour of Jewish Lublin: the former pre-war Jewish part of Lublin and Lublin ghetto area: visit to
the new Jewish cemetery, Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva (the famous modern Talmudic academy opened on June
24 and 25, 1930), if time allows – the Old Jewish cemetery. Brama Grodzka Center. Follow with Lublin
“German district” to see Action Reinhardt High Command buildings where the “Final solution plan” was
supervised by Odilo Globocnik, the commander of SS and Gestapo Police of the Lublin District
During the day free time for lunch Accommodation in Lublin - to be confirmed Dinner at the hotel or city restaurant
Obóz na Majdanku 05 kjkCC-BY-SA-3.0-pl
Day 6: Lublin - Trawniki - Izbica - Zamosc After breakfast departure to Zamosc. On the way:
guided tour of Majdanek Museum - a former concentration and forced labour camp, also used as a death
camp. It was located in a suburb just three miles from Lublin, opened in September 1941, initially for
Soviet POWs, and was liberated by the Soviet Army in July 1944. During this time more than 79,000
people were murdered at Majdanek main camp alone (59,000 of them Polish Jews) and between 95,000
and 130,000 people in the entire Majdanek system of subcamps. Some 18,000 Jews were killed at
Majdanek on November 3, 1943, during the largest single-day, single-camp massacre of the Holocaust,
named Harvest Festival (totalling 43,000 with 2 subcamps)
Trawniki - short stop in Trawniki to see the monument commemorating the former Trawniki concentration
camp which provided slave labourers for nearby industrial plants of the SS Ostindustrie. From September
1941 until July 1944, the camp was also utilized for training guards recruited from Soviet POWs, known
as "Hiwi" (German letterword for 'Hilfswillige', lit. "those willing to help"), for service with Auxiliary
police in occupied Poland. The Trawniki men (German: Trawnikimänner) took part in Operation
Reinhard, the Nazi extermination of Polish Jews. They conducted executions at extermination camps and
in Jewish ghettos including at Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka II, Warsaw, Czestochowa, Lublin, Lvov,
Radom, Krakow, Bialystok, Majdanek as well as Auschwitz, not to mention Trawniki itself.
Izbica - once a notable centre of trade and commerce, with time the town became a shtetl inhabited almost
entirely by Polish Jews. During the WW2 the Izbica Ghetto was set up by the Nazis. The first mass
deportation of ghetto inmates to the Bełżec extermination camp took place in mid-March 1942 conducted
by the Reserve Police Battalion 101 with the aid of Ukrainian Trawnikis. During Operation Reinhard the
ghetto served as a transfer point to the extermination camps in Belzec and Sobibor for foreign Jews
deported from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia and western Poland (Reichsgau Wartheland). Of all
Jews of Izbica (over 90% of its prewar population), only 14 survived the Holocaust - one of them is
Thomas "Toivi" Blatt, the Sobibor survivor.
Zamosc - the UNESCO World Heritage site. Zamość is a unique example of a Renaissance town in
Central Europe, consistently designed and built in accordance with the Italian theories of the "ideal town,"
built by the founder, Jan Zamoyski and the outstanding architect, Bernardo Morando. Zamość was a large
center of Chasidic Judaism. The Oahal of Zamość was founded in 1588 when Jan Zamoyski agreed to
settle the Jews in the city. The first Jewish settlers were mainly the Sephardi Jews coming from Italy,
Spain, Portugal and Turkey. In the 17th century, the newcomers were recruited among the Ashkenazi Jews
that soon constituted the majority of the Jewish population.
Accommodation in Zamosc – to be confirmed Lunch en route, dinner independent 120 km
Old City of Zamosc © Narodowy Instytut Dziedzictzwa
Day 7: Zamosc - Szczebrzeszyn - Sandomierz After breakfast:
Jewish and historic Zamosc city tour including visit to the synagogue in Zamosc.
Szczebrzeszyn – Szczebrzeszyn's history can be traced back to 1352 and there is one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Poland (16th cent) – visit to the Jewish cemetery. Name of Szczebrzeszyn is used in the most difficult sentence in Polish to be pronounced by foreigners “W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie”,
which can be translated to: "In [the town of] Szczebrzeszyn a beetle sounds in the reed". The phrase has
been incorporated in everyday language as an epitome of Polish tongue twisters, and is often presented by
natives to foreign learners of Polish. A monument depicting a cricket playing the violin that was erected in
Szczebrzeszyn refers to this sentence.
Sandomierz – beautiful miedieval town, known for its Old Town, which is a major tourist attraction. In the
past, Sandomierz used to be one of the most important urban centers not only of Lesser Poland, but also of
the whole country. Sandomierz also became a symbol of anti-Jewish stereotypes – in 2 catholic churches
one can see a series of paintings with scenes with ritual murders committed in Sandomierz by Jews on
Christian children. Visit to Sandomierz cathedral church and St Paul's Church to see them.
Accommodation in Sandomierz – to be confirmed Lunch en route, dinner independent 140 km
Foto: The Holocaust in Kazimierz Dolny 02CC0
Day 8: Sandomierz – Poniatowa - Kazimierz Dolny – Przytyk - Łódź After breakfast transfer to Łódź. On the way:
Poniatowa - the memorial site of the former Nazi German concentration camp, later Jewish forced
labour camp, where some 18 thousand Jews were executed during the Operation Harvest Festival
(Aktion Erntefest) of November 4, 1943. The monument in memory of the victims of the Holocaust
was unveiled in Poniatowa on November 4, 2008
Kazimierz Dolny – a picturesque small town on Vistula river, a major tourist attraction of the region with
magnificent old architecture. Jewish community was present in the city from the time of Casimir III the
Great in the 14th century. The king granted the Jews a writ of rights which caused the town to become
a focal point for Jewish immigration. Short walking tour around the town and the remnants of Jewish
past – the synagogue, the cemetery. One of the most famous Jewish residents of the town was the
painter and sculptor Chaim Goldberg. Another was the noted journalist S. L. Shneiderman, who wrote
about Kazimierz Dolny in his book The River Remembers.
Przytyk (with no stop in the town) – pass by the place where the Przytyk Pogrom occurred against the
Jewish community on March 9, 1936. In the opinion of Jewish historian Emanuel Melzer of Tel Aviv
University, it was the most notorious incident of antisemitic violence in Poland in the interwar period,
and attracted worldwide attention, while other historians claim it was not a pogrom.
Łódź – check in, dinner
Accommodation in Łódź – to be confirmed Lunch en route, dinner
313 km
Tora przed synagogą Reicherów w Łodzi, f. Mariusz Kucharczyk
Day 9: Łódź After breakfast full day tour of Jewish Łódź (inc. the Łódź ghetto area, the Radegast deportation station, the cemetery) - itinerary to be confirmed.
In the evening – Jewish cuisine cooking workshop with tasting of self made traditional Jewish meals.