DAY ONE: Sunday, June 13, 2010

• Depart the U.S. to Poland.

Overnight: Flight

• Arrive at Warsaw Airport.
• Welcome by our representative and assistance with arrival formalities.
• Transfer to the hotel and check in (transfer from airport to hotel is included).
• Relax, unpack and settle in.
• Opening dinner at the hotel.

Overnight: Warsaw

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• The World That Was - Guided visit through the Okapova Cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in the world and a testimony to hundreds of years of Jewish life in Poland.
• Guided visit through the Warsaw Ghetto, including the Remnants of the Ghetto Wall, the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial, Mila 18, Umschlagplatz, site of the deportation of the Warsaw Jewish community to Treblinka.
• Concluding Warsaw program at the Nozyk Synagogue, the last remaining pre-Holocaust synagogue in Warsaw.
• Da'at Encounter: Dinner with members of the Beit Warszawa Jewish community in Warsaw.

Overnight: Warsaw
 

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Check out of the hotel.
• Depart Warsaw and travel to Krakow by train.
• Arrive in Krakow.
• Depart for Auschwitz.
• In This Place - Guided visit and study session in the Auschwitz -Berkenau camps.
• Visit the Osvizem Jewish Center.
• Return to Krakow.
• Da'at Encounter: Creating Community in a Devastated Land: Dinner at the hotel with possible guests from the members of the Tzulent Society - young Jews in Krakow.

Overnight: Krakow

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Interactive ‘Site & Text' program in the Kazimierz Jewish Quarter, including:
  • The Altshul, the oldest synagogue in Poland.
  • The Rema Synagogue, the synagogue of Rabbi Moses Isserles the “Rema,” the great codifier of Jewish law.
  • The Rema Cemetery, where many great rabbinical leaders of Polish Jewry are buried.
  • Visit to the Galicia Museum, a collection of photographs known as  Traces of Memory, a photographic exhibition offering a contemporary look at the Jewish past in Poland.
  • The “Pharmacy” gateway to the Ghetto, and the Jewish Ghetto.
  • The Temple, Krakow's Reform congregation.
  • The Oskar Schindler factory.
• Depart for Bratislava.
• Arrive in Bratislava and check in to the hotel.
• Dinner at your hotel.

Overnight: Bratislava

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Visit the history-filled underground memorial and tomb of Rabbi Chaim Shrieber, known as the Chatam Sofer, one of the great leaders of pre-Holocaust Ashkenazi Jewry, buried in the remnants of an old Jewish cemetery.
• Visit the Museum of Jewish Culture to meet with local Jewish leaders to hear about the Bratislava (known to Jews as Pressburg) Jewish community, past and present.
• Gather for a memorial ceremony at the Holocaust Memorial, located on the remnants of the Pressburg Central Synagogue.
• Drive to Budapest.
  

An introductory tour of Budapest.

• Explore the story of Jewish Budapest in the past 150 years including:
  • Dohaney Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe.
  • The Jewish Museum, housed on the site of Theodor Herzl's birth.
  • The Heroes' Temple, dedicated to Jews who died in World War I.
  • The Community Holocaust Memorial.
• Check into the hotel and prepare for Shabbat.
• Optional Kabbalat Shabbat/Maariv at the Dohaney Street Synagogue.
• Da'at Encounter: Shabbat dinner with possible guest from the Jewish community of Budapest.

Overnight: Budapest

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Optional Shabbat services at one of the Budapest synagogues.
• Free time for rest, relaxation and wandering around Budapest.
• Walk across the Danube and through the Castle Hill area with your tour educator.
• Free time and dinner on your own.

Overnight: Budapest

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Guided visit through downtown Budapest, including Heroes Square and the sprawling boulevards of Budapest.
• Da'at Encounter: Drive across to Pest for a special program with the Budapest Jewish Youth Club or at the Jewish Community Center.
• Guided visits to:
  • The Small Synagogue, one of the oldest in the area of Budapest.
  • The Fake Cemetery, site of a repository of Jewish tombstones dating from as far back as the 13th century.
  • The Raul Wallenberg Memorial
• Drive to the Danube Bend and the unique village of Szendentaire, including its small and one-of-a-kind synagogue.
• Dinner on your own, followed by an optional cultural event (on your own).

Overnight: Budapest

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Depart for Brno in the Czech Republic.
• Da'at Encounter: Visit the Brno Synagogue, and meet with one of the last Jews remaining in this once thriving Jewish community.
• Drive to Prague.
• Arrive in Prague and ascend Metronome Hill for a brief orientation to Prague.
• Check in to hotel.
• Free time and dinner on your own in Prague's Old Town.
• Introductory welcome tour of the center of Prague with your tour educator.

Overnight: Prague

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• From the Maharal to Kafka, the Legacy of Jewish Prague, with the Da'at Tour Educator.
• Ascend to the Prague Castle for a guided tour of the Castle and an overview of the City of 100 Spires, through the Lesser Town and over the Charles Bridge.
• Guided visit through Jewish Prague, including the Old Ghetto, the Precious Legacy Exhibit at the “Jewish Museum” and the Jewish cemetery.
• The Altneu Shul, the longest continually used synagogue in Europe and site of the first use of the Magen David.
• The Pincus Synagogue, a memorial to the Jews of Prague who died in the Holocaust.
• The Klausen Synagogue, where the Nazis began their exhibit: “Jewish Life from the Cradle to the Grave,” in 1943.
• The Maisel Synagogue, named after a Jewish mayor of Prague, exemplifying the Golden Age of Jewish Prague.
• The Old Cemetery, with the graves of such Jewish luminaries as Judah Loew, the Maharal and Mordechai Maisels, and the ceremonial hall with the well-known Hevra Kadisha paintings; active program.
• Da'at Encounter: Dinner and wrap-up conversation with group members.

Overnight: Prague

Overnight: Prague

Overnight: Berlin

Overnight: Berlin

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Explore Berlin on your own, with some suggested walking tours:
  • Walk to the Holocaust memorial, designed by architect Peter Eisenman.  This undulating field of reflection with thousands of concrete dark gray slabs forms a gentle wave, ankle-high in some places, designed to give visitors a sense of groundlessness and of a loss of orientation. The memorial also includes a subterranean information center at the edge of the site, housing a permanent exhibition dedicated to the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
  • Walk to the Brandenburg Gate, originally commissioned by Friedrich Wilhelm II to represent peace. The gate was ironically incorporated into the Berlin Wall during the years of the Communist government. Perhaps the most well known landmark in Berlin, it now stands as a symbol of the reunification of the two sides of this city.
  • Walk along Grosse Hamburger Strasse. This short street, which once epitomized Jewish life in Berlin in all its diversity, also bears witness to the Nazis' determination to extinguish it. It was turned by the Gestapo into a deportation center, and now a monument commemorating the victims of the transports to ghettos and extermination camps. This was also the site of the city's oldest Jewish cemetery and is the burial place of 18th-century philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. The building of the former Jewish boys' school, just next door, now houses a Jewish secondary school, inaugurated in 1993.
  • Walk along Unter Den Linden, a beautiful boulevard that includes the Russian Embassy, the Berlin State Library, Berlin State Opera, Humboldt University and the former Crown Prince's Palace, ending in the Book Burning Memorial, where in 1933 the Nazis staged the burning of non-German books, paving the way toward a Nazi totalitarian state.
  • Visit the new Sony Center on Potsdamer Platz, opened in 2000 as the new center of Berlin. The complex is dominated by glass and steel and includes offices, apartments, cinemas, restaurants and the Sony European headquarters.  The complex represents a clearly visible symbol of a modern multimedia society.
• Dinner on your own.

Overnight: Berlin

• Breakfast at the hotel.
• Depart for the Berlin Airport.
• Transfer to airport for flight home (transfer is included from hotel to the airport. Please allow a minimum of two hours for check-in).
• Fly home and arrive in the U.S. on the same day.