Jewish Heritage tour to Poland, Belarus and Lithuania

Make your own way to Warsaw hotel 

The program will commence in the late afternoon with the session with your local guide and tour director for the Polish part. The introduction will be given, and the welcome dinner will be served at the hotel. 

We will start the Warsaw city tour by a walk along the Royal Route. The street reconstructs the way Polish Kings used to arrive at their residence. The Royal Castle, where the Polish kings resided, and the Polish President briefly held a residency in 1918.

Look at the King Sigismund’s III Column, the first secular monument in Poland. Enter “Stare Miasto” (Old Town) through a narrow street and have a look at two impressive temples on the way to the Market Square. Make a picture of the Syrenka statue and fountain and continue to the Barbacan. Find the figure of Little Insurgent and learn the heroic story of children fighting during WWII.

Continue the tour by visiting the New Town starting from the Church of the Holy Spirit. We will pass by the New Market Square, and will finish the stroll at the impressive Warsaw Uprising monument. 

Will continue to famous Lazienki Park, where we will walk by Belvedere Palace. Will finish the day at the impressive F. Chopin statue.

The bus will pick us up and will drive to see the Palace of Culture and Science (Palac Kultury i Nauki) located in the new center of Warsaw. We will stop to see Warsaw Nozhik Synagogue. It is the center of Jewish life in Warsaw today, and also a museum for the visitors.

After a short walk, we will enter one of the courtyards. Here you will see the brick-built eight meters tall Ghetto Wall remnant. 

 As common on Jewish tours, our next destination is a New Jewish Cemetery on Okopova Street. It is an open book of Polish Jewish history. Here we will comment on the graves of several famous personalities.  

From the cemetery, we will walk to the ghetto area. First is Mordechai Anilewicz street, with newly built houses. Today it is hard to imagine how did this place look before the destruction.

We will visit a memorial of an Umschlagplatz. Here was a train station, from which the terrible deportations were executed. From Umschlagplatz starts so-called Ghetto Heroes road, a few hundred meters walk along two streets marked by stones with the names of Jewish Resistance leaders. On f such memorials commemorate the Bunker of the Jewish insurgents on former Mila 18 str. 

In a few minutes, we will come to the spacious square. In the center, there is a memorial in honor of the Warsaw Ghetto heroes. Nathan Rapoport designed it just after WWII. Today, the highlight of the Jewish Warsaw tour is the newly opened Museum of the History of Polish Jews.

Today we will drive south to the Royal Capital City of Krakow in Lesser Poland region. We will visit Czestochowa and its world-famous pilgrimage sight – Jasna Gora. Here we will see the famous icon of Black Madonna in the Pauline monastery complex. 

On Jewish tours, we explore specific themes, including the hard ones. We will visit Auschwitz (Oswiecim) concentration camp museum. According to the museum regulation, We have to take a local guide and expert. The tour will walk us through the barracks towards the crematorium. The next stop is 3 kilometers away in Birkenau extermination camp. Millions of visitors come to pay the last tribute to more than a million Jews, and other nationalities killed there. 

In the late afternoon, we will arrive in Krakow.

We will begin the journey of Old Krakow from the statue of the Polish King after the famous Grunwald Battle. Next, we continue through the Barbican and the St. Florian gate to Florianska street, the way used by Polish Kings to cross the city on special events. 

 Shortly we will approach “Rynek Glowny” – the Central Market square with a beautiful St. Mary Basilica and Sukenicy – trading rows. Next, we will turn to one of the side narrow streets to see one of the oldest universities in Europe. Among its famous students were M. Copernicus and K. Woityla, the Pope in the future.  

A special of today is a visit to the complex of Residence of the Kings of Poland. It includes an impressive cathedral and the renaissance Royal Castle at Wawel Hill.

As it is a kosher tour, we will go for a morning service at the Synagogue, and after it will start a walking tour of Kazimierz district. It was settled mostly by Jews and lately became a scene for many tours to visit. Shooting Hollywood movie Schindler’s list made this place very famous. 

We will start at Sheroka street and square and the famous ReMA Synagogue. Just next to it, there is the old Jewish cemetery. It contains graves even from the 15th hundreds. 

There are a few other synagogues and other exciting places to visit. We continue walking to see the impressive “chair memorial” on the Ghetto Heroes Square in the Podgorze district. 

Today we start our tour at one of the most notable highlights of Polish land – the famous Wieliczka salt mines. We will have a guided tour into the depths of the Salt mine and will explore the world of once a very expensive and essential mineral. 

 We will see the underground chapel, the statues of famous Poles, all made of salt, the underground lake, the souvenir shop, and many other things. Salt is everywhere in this place, even in the air of it.

Continue our voyage eastward. We will take an east-west road to Tarnow and Rzeszow. 

Tarnow will impress us with a well preserved old city. The town hall square center is dominated by a renaissance period build town hall. We will walk down a little street, and you will see the remnant of the Synagogue – the red brick built central part – bimah.

Will hit the road to Rzeszow. Rzeszów’s prime attraction is a 396m-long route linking 25 old cellars beneath the central market square. We will also see the monument to the Revolutionary Act, commemorating the battles of WWII.  You also will be offered to see the Old and the New Synagogues of the town.

In the morning we will visit the castle of Lublin. It is the former residence of the Polish Kings, where the famous Union between Lithuania and Poland was signed in 1569. We will walk into the old city through the Grodska Gate, also known as the Jewish Gate. 

There is a new center in the actual gate, called “Grodzka Gate – NN Theatre.” It is a cultural center and a museum of local history. It is also a unique theatre, run by young people. 

We will continue walking in the Old City, enjoying the views of the narrow streets and old buildings. Will listen to their history, and will see it marked and outlined on the little plaques.

We plan to show you the building of the very famous Jewish religious School – The Yeshiva of Lublin. Then we will proceed to the remnants of the Jewish cemetery located outside the Old City. 

Optional: Visit the Majdanek concentration camp museum and Memorial.

Next, we will drive to the Belorussian border and will arrive in Brest late at night.

The first highlight of the Brest city tour is the Railway Station. Here, trains from the narrow-gauge West European bogies are replaced with the Russian ones. Next is Lenina Street and to the main square, where the statue of the revolution leader is just next to a Roman Catholic Church.

We shall move on to Moskovskaya street. Here we will see the buildings of TSUM and Intourist Hotel – beautiful relics of the Communist era. 

As many times it happens on Jewish tours, the nowadays view varies very much from the historical one. Our bus will stop somewhere on the main street to let us out, and it will be hard to realize that once there was a border between the small and the large Ghetto. That once here was a center of Jewish life, religion, studies, and politics.

We will see the house where Menachem Begin lived, as well as the houses of numerous Jewish entrepreneurs. We will go for a short stroll in the pedestrian street Sovetskaya and will see a movie theater “Belarus,” only with the help of the guide you shall realize that it was a great Synagogue of Brest.

The last, but not least important highlight of Brest is its Fortress. We will visit the museum and memorial complex and will tell the story of the siege. Not to forget to mention, that the old synagogue and Jewish cemetery was destroyed during the Brest fortress construction. 

After the Brest tour, we will hit the road to the town of Mir.

Mir is famous in a Jewish world for a Mir yeshiva, established by Shmuel Tiktinsky. It was established in 1815 and housed close to five hundred students. You will see in the same small area the buildings of the former Yeshiva and three synagogues. The old Jewish cemetery of Mir is on the side of the town and still has a dozen of the tombstones. 

We will visit the Duke Radziwill castle, which was recently renovated and included in Unesco lists. Belosussians say that it is the most visited museum in the country. 

On the way out, we will see the Memorial for the Jewish inhabitants murdered during WWII. 

After a visit to Mir, we continue the drive to Novogrudok, once the center of the Great Duchy of Lithuania. We will see the central square of a typical provincial town. We will have a walk to the castle hill and will see the statue of Adam Mickiewicz. 

Rav Yosef Yoizel Horowitz served as Rosh of another famous Lithuanian Yeshiva of Novardok. From the center, we will drive to the Jewish part of the town. A special place to visit is the Ghetto area and the camp where Jews were kept. There is a very touching exhibition in the authentic barracks. It will tell us the story of the escape of 233 ghetto prisoners to the partisans. 

Late afternoon arrival to Minsk. We will have a walk in the small part of the Old Town, which survived WWII. Will continue to an impressive main street and will pass the Republic square and will finish the stroll at the Presidential Palace.

We will start the day by visiting the Memorial for the Jews perished in Minsk during the Nazi occupation. The Yama obelisk was built on the exact spot where five thousand Jews were slaughtered. We will continue a short walk through the area of the Jewish quarter and the Ghetto in Minsk.

Next, we will drive through the city center to see the Victory Park and will finish at the current Minsk Synagogue. 

In the afternoon, we will leave Minsk and will drive to visit Volozhin. Famous for the renowned Yeshiva established in 1803 by Rav Hayim Volozhiner, a disciple of the Vilna Gaon. A fire swept Volozhin in the middle of the 19th c., but the “mother of yeshivas” was untouched. 

We will visit Radin, a small town, where Chafetz Chayim founded the Yeshiva, which attracted students from all over Europe. Well, if you do not like Yeshivot and Cemeteries, try to avoid Jewish tours, as these places are a must. We will also see the Jewish cemetery and the matzevah of Chafetz Chayim and the Memorial to the local Jews murdered during WWII. 

Jewish heritage tour to Lithuania is just in a few minutes. We will cross the border to Lithuania and arrive in Vilnius.

We will commence Vilnius city tour from its cradle – Gediminas Hill and the remnants of the upper castle. We will continue to the Cathedral square, where you can observe the beautiful Neo-Classical Cathedral. Then we will whisk out through the narrow street to another square to see the Presidential Palace and the Old Vilnius University, founded in 1579. Will walk along medieval Castle street in the heart of the Old City. One of the most breathtaking sights is the “gothic triangle.”

From here, we will drive to see the pearl of Baroque architecture in Vilnius – St. Peter and Paul’s Church – which has more than 2000 statues as its interior decoration.

Visit the Jewish State museum – called Tolerance Centre. Drive to Ponar forest and Holocaust memorial – the sight of the extermination of 100 thousand people, among which 70 thousand were Jews.

A tour of Trakai – the land of lakes and forests. The ancient capital and the residence of Grand Dukes of Lithuania with its 14th-century insular castle – today, the museum of the Lithuanian history. The Karaite museum represents the story of this small ethnic group, brought from Crimea 600 years ago. Visit the unique Karaite cemetery.

As it is a kosher journey, we will start the day by going to the Vilnius Synagogue assembled in Moorish- Romanesque style. 

Next is lunch in the Chabad center. After it, we will have a walking tour in the medieval Jewish Quarter of Vilnius, called Lithuanian Jerusalem. We will pass by Music school where Jasha Heifetz studied. We will stop by the building of the famous ORT school, and by the structure of the famous Tarbut Gimnazia. As well as at the former Yiddish theatre, Rabbis’ council and the place of Theodor Herzl visited Vilnius. 

Just around the corner is a Benedictine convent. We will enter the courtyard of it to tell you the story of saving twelve Jewish souls by Lithuanian Righteous Among the Nations. 

We will continue to the Vilnius Jewish quarter streets and Vilna Gaon’s home and will finish at the spot of the Great Synagogue.

The last part of the Vilnius tour will take us to the Large Ghetto. We will see the Judenrat office and will tell the story of “choiceless choices.” We will enter the Jewish center of culture and information, to see the art gallery and to go to the cellar to see the recreated “Maline” hiding place. We will finish the walking tour at the Ghetto theatre and will discuss it as the center of Spiritual resistance.

Jewish Heritage tour of Poland, Belarus and Lithuania came to its end. We have done a long journey to the world of these countries and did our best to present to you all the relevant places and to tell you the most important pieces of information. We hope to see you on other Jerulita tours.