Holocaust and WW II
Holocaust Study Tour: Berlin – Warsaw – Krakow – Auschwitz.
Eighty years have passed since the end of World War II and the commited Holocaust still remains as a current topic not only for the next generations of victims and direct perpetrators, but also for many other European nations, whose citizens were more or less involved in the extermination of the Jews as accomplices and helpers or passive witnesses, sometimes also as silent heroes, who risked their lives saving their fellow citizens.
Even years later, the Holocaust is an important subject of historical and humanistic reflection. "How was that possible?" - is the first question of a sensitive person. During our journeys in the footsteps of the Holocaust, we try to answer this question. We show various faces of the extermination, which is wrongly connected only with the gas chambers of Auschwitz. This story also includes the dehumanization of the victims, deprivation of civil rights, robbery of property, confinement in ghettos, slave labor, destruction through hunger, disease and mass shootings.
The state civil service which organized the crime and gave it an indutrial character is also a big part of this history. But would all of this be possible without the anti - Semitism, poisoning human minds and has been cultivated in Europe for nearly two thousand years?
A nine - day study tours from Berlin and Willa Wannsee, in which within a few hours a dozen people decided to kill millions, to the gas chambers of Auschwitz, where the Wannsee resolutions found their most terrible realization, is a time to learn historical facts and to reflect on the past and present.
Our study tours in the footsteps of the Holocaust are offered in two variants:
- from Berlin through Dresden - Theresienstadt - Prague - Krakow to Auschwitz
- from Berlin through Warsaw - Treblinka - Krakow to Auschwitz
Trip Highlights:
- Visit to the exhibition “The topography of terror” in the former Gestapo headquarters
- Visit to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews
- Tour of the multimedia exhibition “Krakow under Nazi occupation 1939 – 1945” in the former Oskar Schindler Factory
- Visit to Auschwitz- Birkenau - the world’s largest Nazi extermination camp
- Meeting with an “eyewitness to history”–a survivor of the Krakow ghetto or a “Righteous Among the Nations of the World”
Itinerary:
Day 1 Berlin
morning Arrival in Berlin. Check-in at your hotel. Lunch.
afternoon “Historic Berlin”–from the Alexanderplatz, we go via the Nikolausviertel, the Protestant cathedral, the monument to Frederick the Great, the Humboldt University and the famous Unter den Linden Street to the Brandenburg Gate, and then take a tour of the Reichstag and a walk up inside the glazed dome of the building for a panorama of the city from the viewing terrace. The route we take will give us an insight into the city’s development through history, from its modest medieval beginnings, through its days as the capital of Prussia and a European metropolis, to the period of the Third Reich.
evening Free time.
Day 2 Berlin
morning “Berlin–the capital of the Third Reich”–a look at the madness that was National Socialism, and at the destruction of the city in World War II. We will tour the exhibition “The topography of terror”, which is housed in the building that until 1945 was the headquarters of the Gestapo, a prison, the head office of the SS, and the office of the German counter-intelligence forces – the most criminal institutions of National Socialism. The exhibition examines the structure of the apparatus of the terror of National Socialist Germany, identifies the “bureaucrat criminals”, and reveals the organization behind Nazi violence.
Next, we go on to the nearby monumental Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and tour the exhibition beneath it.
afternoon “The Berlin Wall – divided city, divided Europe”. The German capital, bisected for decades by the wall, became a symbol of the Cold War and the divided Europe in the wake of World War II. The wall itself became a symbol of the “iron curtain”, behind which the countries of Eastern Europe suffered bondage under the Communist dictatorships. The Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War all come together into a coherent narrative at Check Point Charlie, the former border crossing point between East and West Berlin, and as we tour the Berlin Wall site of memory at Bernauer Strasse.
evening Dinner and free time.
Day 3 Berlin (optional)
“Berlin – cultural metropolis”. Contemporary Berlin is a European metropolis with a vast array of cultural attractions. We, therefore, propose a “day off” from the fundamental theme of our tour to take advantage of a few of the city’s cultural gems.
The options include Museum Island (Museumsinsel) with the famous Pergamonmuseum, the paintings of the European Old Masters in the Kulturforum, the Babelsberg film studio, or a trip out to nearby Potsdam, with the splendid Sanssouci Palace and gardens.
However, if you would prefer to remain closer to the main theme of our tour, we recommend one of the following options:
- The Jewish Museum – an astonishing work of contemporary architecture by Daniel Libeskind offering an insight into the millennial history and culture of the Jews in Germany.
- The Stasi Museum – in the former secret police headquarters we learn about the functioning of the system of invigilation and terror in the Communist German Democratic Republic,
- The Scheunenviertel – the former Jewish quarter in Berlin, now home to a trendy art scene. The dominant architectural feature in the district is the New Synagogue with its golden domes, Germany’s largest, reconstructed after the destruction of the “Crystal Night”,
- The exhibition in the Site of Memory at the House of the Wannsee Conference (Haus der Wannseekonferenz). This well-organized exhibition presents the historical background to and progress of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Question” in the place where the decision to commit the mass murder of Europe’s Jews took on planned and structured form, enlisting the collaboration of all the institutions of the German state.
Day 4 Berlin - Warsaw
morning Train or coach transfer from Berlin to Warsaw. Check-in at your hotel and lunch.
afternoon “Warsaw – like a phoenix from the ashes”. Warsaw experienced more tragic destruction during World War II than any other city. On liberation from German occupation, the city that before the war had been home to 1.5 million people had a population of barely a thousand, and almost 85% of its built fabric had been razed to the ground. We propose a tour of the city rebuilt after the war, in particular the Old Town, UNESCO listed as a unique work of reconstruction of an entire historic district of a city.
evening Dinner and free time.
Day 5 Warsaw
morning “The ghetto and the ghetto uprising”. Before World War II, Warsaw was the second-largest Jewish community in the world. During the war, the Germans established a ghetto in the city, in which some 450,000 Jews lived in appalling conditions and from which the majority were subsequently taken to be murdered in the gas chambers of Treblinka. The final act of the ghetto’s existence was the uprising which broke out in April 1943. The history of the ghetto and the uprising are the subjects of our morning walking tour along the route of the Memory of Jewish Martyrdom and Struggle.
We end our tour at the Jewish cemetery where there are mass graves of the ghetto victims, symbolic graves of Holocaust victims, a memorial to Janusz Korczak, and the Memorial to the Child Victims of the Holocaust.
afternoon The Holocaust was more than the extermination of millions of people. The entire unique culture of the East European Jews was annihilated. A visit to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews is the best possible introduction to Jewish culture and its specifics in Eastern Europe.
evening Free time or a chosen themed activity: a meeting with one of the “Children of the Holocaust” – a survivor from the Warsaw ghetto or a screening of the Andrzej Wajda film “Korczak” or Roman Polański’s “The Pianist”.
Day 6 Warsaw - Krakow
morning Transfer to Krakow by train. Check-in at your hotel and lunch.
afternoon “Krakow, city of kings”. Tour of the Old Town in Krakow, the historic capital of Poland. Program includes the Main Market Square, the Cloth Hall, and St. Mary’s Basilica, with its famous wooden altarpiece made by Veit Stoss; the Gothic courtyard of Collegium Maius, the narrow streets of the Old Town, the Cathedral on Wawel Hill, with the tombs of the Polish kings, and the Royal Castle.
evening Free time.
Day 7 Krakow - Auschwitz - Krakow
morning & afternoon “Auschwitz – the topography and logic of the Holocaust”: two-part tour. The first part covers the exhibition in the prisoner blocks in Auschwitz I – Stammlager (the original camp): the death block, the wall of death, and the only surviving gas chamber and crematorium. After a rest, a tour of Auschwitz II – Birkenau, the site of the mass extermination of the Jews, with the preserved prisoners’ barracks, the ruins of the gas chambers and crematoria, and the monument commemorating the victims of the camp. Return to Krakow.
evening Dinner, followed by a meeting with an “eyewitness to history” – a survivor of the Krakow ghetto or a “Righteous Among the Nations of the World”, one of those who helped to rescue Jewish fellow residents of the city during the Holocaust.
Day 8 Krakow
morning “Before the Holocaust” – a tour of Kazimierz, the former Jewish quarter of Krakow. Visit to the Gothic and Renaissance Old Synagogue, now the Jewish Museum, and to the sixteenth-century Jewish cemetery adjacent to the Remuh Synagogue. After a rest, a tour of the site of the former ghetto in the district of Podgórze – surviving sections of the ghetto wall; the Eagle Pharmacy, a site of memory; and the “empty chairs” memorial. Lunch.
afternoon Tour of the multimedia exhibition “Krakow under Nazi occupation 1939 – 1945” in the former Oskar Schindler Factory.
evening Dinner in a Jewish restaurant in Kazimierz and a concert of klezmer music.
Day 9 Return journey
Check-out. Transfer to the airport and flight out of Krakow.
Services included:
- 3 night's accommodation in Berlin in a hotel chosen by you on bed and breakfast basis
- 2 night's accommodation in Warsaw in a hotel chosen by you on bed and breakfast basis
- 3 night's accommodation in Krakow in a hotel chosen by you on bed and breakfast basis
- All transfers as per above mentioned itinerary
- Private English speaking guide as per the itinerary
- Entrance fees for all sightseeing
- Meals as per the itinerary
Services not included:
- The journey to Germany and from Poland
- Tour guide
- Public transport
- Insurance
- Personal expenditure, tips, etc.
- All other services not mentioned in the itinerary
Price on request.