With our 7-days tour JEWISH CULTURE IN POLAND you will explore abundant legacy of Jewish communities which had lived in Poland since the medieval times. Visit cities which used to be the most important centres of Jewish culture and sites of their tremendous tragedy.
Your tour leader will meet & greet you at the Krakow's airport. After the hotel check-in you will meet up with the local licensed guide and go on the orientation city tour around the Old Town. You will walk along the Royal Route, visit the biggest medieval Market Square in the world until you reach the Wawel Hill with the Residence of Polish Kings
In the evening there will be a welcome dinner held at your hotel.
Today you will follow the traces of Jewish heritage in Krakow. Our guide will take to the Jewish Quarter - Kazimierz, the best preserved Jewish quarter in Europe with plenty of synagogues including Old Synagogue (one of Europe's oldest Jewish places of worship) and Remuh Synagogue, which is the only active one in Krakow. You will also visit the Jewish Museum Galicia. Lunch will be arranged in one of the local restaurants serving traditional Jewish cuisine. Then you will be led to the former Jewish Ghetto area where you will visit Schindler's Factory Museum.
The dinner will be served at the hotel at the end of the day.
This day will be dedicated to the visit at the biggest Nazi concentration and extermination camp - KL Auschwitz-Birkenau. Once you arrive you will meet up with a local expert guide who during the 6h study tour will take you through the exhibitions in the remaining prison blocks and show you the ruins of gas chambers and crematoriums of Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II - Birkenau. Lunch will be arranged in one the local restaurants. Before leaving to Warsaw you will also see Chevrah Lomdei Mishnayot synagogue, the only one left in the area, the place of reflection and prayer.
The dinner is awaiting the group at the hotel.
Right after breakfast you will go on the walking tour around Warsaw. You will start with walking down the Royal Route, visiting the Castle Square and Old Town and then continue the tour toward Grzybowski Square and Prozna street which is the only remaining street of Warsaw Ghetto and walk around the former Jewish District passing Nozykow Synagogue, remains of Ghetto wall. Also, you will have a chance to see a building for Jewish orphans that was moved here in 1942 from the city’s outskirts. After lunch you will see the Umschlagplatz mass transportations to Treblinka extermination camp took place and visit the Museum of History of Polish Jews- POLIN.
Dinner will be arranged in the hotel.
It's a day when you will visit another Nazi extermination camp - Treblinka. It is located around 100 km away from Warsaw and it is death spot for approximately 800-900 thousand Jews from Poland and many countries of Western Europe, including about 250 thousand Warsaw ghetto Jews with Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit) and orphanage children who were under his care. You will have packed lunch on the bus whilst driving to Lublin where Orthodox Jews prevailed and their pride was the Yeshivat Hakhmei Lublin renowned all over Europe.
After the check-in you will go on the Lublin sightseeing tour. The city used to be called Jewish Oxford because of the presence of Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva. You will follow the traces of Jewish heritage in the city with a local licensed guide.
Dinner at the hotel.
In the morning you will pay a visit to Majdanek Concentration Camp where 80 000 people lost their lives during the Nazi occupation. Then you will head to Lezajsk which has become the most significant centre of the Hasidic movement in Galicia thanks to rabbi Elimelech Lippman whose ohel you will visit. Then you will continue to Lancut where you'll stay overnight.
Before dinner you will participate in the short city tour of Lancut during which you'll see one of the most impressive synagogues in Poland, it was built in a baroque style, richly decorated.< The guide also will show you a local Jewish cemetery.
