• Depart the US for your journey to Poland. 

Overnight: Flight

• Welcome to Poland! At Krakow International Airport, your driver will be waiting to greet you and drive you to the hotel for check-in.  
• 5:00 p.m. You will meet your fellow travelers, expert educator, and local tour guide. 
• You are going to begin your journey by checking out the beating heart of Krakow, the Main Market Square. The very best of vibrant modern street life combined with medieval architecture, this market is a rare and beautiful treat. 
• Your first evening in Poland, you will enjoy delicious Polish cuisine in a welcome dinner followed by a traditional Klezmer music concert.  

Meals Included: Dinner
Overnight: Krakow

• Begin your day by meeting Dr. Edyta Gawron, who heads the Center for the Study of the History and Culture of Krakow Jews at Jagiellonian University. She will share fascinating insights into the complex relationship between Jews and their Polish and Ukrainian neighbors.  
• The Kazimierz Jewish Quarter has been the heart of Jewish life in Krakow for 500 years and is now one of the city’s most attractive and Bohemian areas. You will see Poland’s oldest standing synagogue, the Altshul; the Rema Synagogue, one of the few synagogues in Krakow still active today; the Rema Cemetery, where many renowned rabbis are buried; the Tempel Synagogue, a Reform synagogue before the war and today a key venue in the revival of Jewish culture in the city. 
• You will then walk the tragic path taken in 1941 by thousands of Krakow Jews – across the bridge from Kazimierz to the site of the Podgorze ghetto. Your guided visit will include: 
  • The Ghetto Heroes Square, including the memorial to the Jews that were deported from here.   
  • The Under the Eagle Pharmacy, a pharmacy inside the ghetto run by Tadeusz Pankiewitz, a Polish-Catholic pharmacist who saved many Jews.  
  • The Oscar Schindler Factory Museum, which tells the story of Krakow and its residents under Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945. The museum is located in the enamel factory owned by Schindler and his wife Emilie, which they used to protect over 1,000 Jews from deportation to Auschwitz.   
• Visit the Galicia Jewish Museum, with its powerful photographs of Jewish life in Polish Galicia.  
• Return to the hotel. 
• Experience authentic Krakow cuisines and culture on a tasting tour as you discover the best local foods and markets. 

Meals Included: Breakfast, Dinner
Overnight: Krakow

• You will visit the Auschwitz–Birkenau complex, the largest of the Nazi concentration and extermination centers, where over 1.1 million people lost their lives. You’ll reflect on the personal stories of some of the Jews held and killed here and read powerful accounts from survivors.  
• Boxed lunch en route. 
• It’s time to process everything you have experienced at the Oswiecim Synagogue, where you will meet with Tomasz Kuncewicz, director of the Oswiecim Jewish Center.  
• Return to Krakow with time to freshen up before Shabbat. 
• (Optional) Kabbalat Shabbat services at a local synagogue.  
• Enjoy Shabbat dinner at the Krakow Jewish Community Center with members of the local community and JCC director Jonathan Ornstein. 

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
Overnight: Krakow

• Check out of the hotel. Your luggage will be transferred separately to Warsaw. 
• So long, Krakow. Travel north by train (approx. 2.5 hours) to Poland’s capital, Warsaw. At the train station, you will meet your local tour guide. 
• Explore Koszyki Market Hall, a bustling, renovated market hall for trendy restaurants & boutiques, street food & cultural events. 
• You’ll visit the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, located in the center of what once was the Warsaw Ghetto. It would take weeks to explore the entire museum, but you’ll get the chance to see the exhibitions that especially fascinate you. Meet Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Program Director of the Core Exhibition of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Check into the hotel. 
• Enjoy a free evening in Warsaw, once considered Europe’s “city of lights.” It is now regaining that reputation with its dazzling array of restaurants, bars, cafés, and other options.  

Meals Included: Breakfast
Overnight: Warsaw

• In your visit to the Jewish Cemetery of Warsaw (Gensha) on Okopowa Street, you will not only mourn the lives that were lost – including rabbis, communists, scientists, and Yiddish writers – but also recall the immense strength of Jewish life in Warsaw.  
• It is fitting that after reflecting on the loss, we turn our eyes to the present and future. Enjoy brunch at the Warsaw JCC and learn about the joys and challenges of rebuilding Jewish communal life in Poland.  
• Was there really a Ghetto here: Not much is left of the Warsaw Ghetto after it was demolished by the Nazis. But if you know where to look you can find testimony of Jewish life during World War 2, Hiding behind tall modern buildings. Our tour will include:  
  • The Ghetto wall – the Warsaw ghetto was separated from the rest of the city by a brick wall. It created two distinctly different realities 12 inches apart. 
  • Warsaw had over 400 synagogues before the Holocaust. You’ll visit the Nozyk Synagogue, the only stand-alone synagogue that remains today.  
  • Grzybowski Square was once a bustling center of Jewish life. It has around it Jewish and Christian buildings, culture, religious, residential and commercial institutions.  
  • Waliców Street was the home of the Jewish young poet Władysław Szlengel, who’s words caught the spirit of a whole generation imprisoned in the Ghetto.  
  • Chłodna street separated two parts of the Ghetto. This is one of the places where past and present scenery changed only little and can allow us to reconstruct life in the Ghetto.  
• “Let the World Read and Know What the Murderers Have Done”:  Explore the Ringelblum Archives, an eye-witness record of life and death in the Warsaw Ghetto. These diaries, letters, underground newspapers, and studies were collected and collated, at great risk, by a group of Jewish historians and leaders living in the Ghetto. We’ll see the milk cannisters and metal boxes where Dr. Emmanuel Ringelblum and his “Oneg Shabbat” team hid this material and examine what they reveal about Jewish life under Nazi terror. 
• Return to the hotel.  
• (Optional) A guided evening walk through Warsaw’s Old Town, once a center of European cultural life and now again a vibrant area of fashionable restaurants and shops as well as medieval walls and cathedrals.  

Meals Included: Breakfast, Lunch
Overnight: Warsaw

• It’s time to see the Warsaw Ghetto. Here, we’ll stop at the Nathan Rapoport Warsaw Ghetto Memorial and retrace, at the Path of Remembrance, the steps taken in 1943 by heroic fighters during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. At Mila 18, we will commemorate the doomed uprising and at Umschlagplatz, the holding area before transportation to the Treblinka death camp, reflect on the fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. 
• You are going to visit the Warsaw Zoo, a large green island in the middle of the city, whose wartime zookeeper Jan Zabinski inspired the book and film, The Zookeeper’s Wife.  
• The Polish Vodka Museum in Warsaw is the only place dedicated to the history and production process of Poland’s favorite drink. Discover the secrets and special taste of Polish vodka as well as food pairing.  
• Return to the hotel and spend the rest of the afternoon taking care of last-minute shopping, packing, and pampering. 
• Private farewell dinner with your expert educator and the new friends you have made during this journey. 

Meals Included: Breakfast, Dinner
Overnight: Warsaw

• Breakfast at the hotel, followed by check-out. 
• Transfer to Warsaw Airport and check in for your return flight to the US. We can’t wait for you to join us again for your next adventure.