Tentative itinerary

Day 1-5 | Day 6-10 | Day 11-15 | Day 16-21

Day 1. Sunday
Arrive in Amsterdam at noon.
General tour of the city. This will be an easy day after a night flight. Most of it will be fun with not much need to concentrate

Day 2. Monday
Visit the Old Jewish Quarter of Amsterdam around Meijerplaein and the Plantage, Including the Jewish Museum and Anne Frank House. We will spend here a good part of the day dealing with the history of Spanish and Portuguese Jews- explaining the difference between Sephardi and Ashkenazi Culture. Through Rembrand's paintings we will learn about Jewish life in 17th century Amsterdam which was also the age of Spinoza and the beginning of Jewish secularism. The traditional pickle shops and herring stands that we encounter raise crucial historical questions - who actually invented pickles and herring, Jews or Dutch, and what was the mutual influence between the cultures? The visit to the Anne Frank House will give us a chance to talk about the Holocaust in Western Europe and the role of bystanders and rescuers.We will meet with local Jewish teenagers who will tell us about Jewish life and concerns in Western Europe today.

Day 3. Tuesday
We take a day trip to Medorodam - the miniature city- then to Fisherman's Village and other sites close to Amsterdam. In the evening we will take a boat ride through the canals of Amsterdam.

Day 4. Wednesday
In the morning we fly to Warsaw, Poland where we arrive before noon. After a short briefing we will visit the former Warsaw ghetto. Since Warsaw was completely destroyed in the war this is a tour in virtual reality. To help us retrace this virtual reality we shall use maps and photos as we walk through the streets of the city. We will start at the wall on Sienna Street, go to Zielazna and Chlodna where the bridge was, then the Umsclagplatz where Jews boarded the deportation trains to Treblinka. From there to Mila 18 and the Rapoport Memorial. We will end with a memorial ceremony prepared by the participants

Day 5. Thursday
This morning we take a three hour bus trip east of Warsaw to a small town called Tykoczin. Accompanying us on the bus and along the entire trip will be a story teller who will tell us stories that will make it easier for us to understand the culture and mentality of Eastern European Jews. Through the stories, some sad some funny, we will get to know the famous Jewish writers Sholom Aleichem, Mendele Mocher Sefarim, Peretz and Bashevis Singer. Before the Holocaust Tykoczyn was a lovely little shtetle with a little over 2000 Jews in it. They were all shot in the Lupochova forest nearby. The only thing that remains of what was once a flowering Jewish community is a towering synagogue that is breathtaking in its beauty. It was renovated about 10 years ago. The local people created a small Jewish museum that will help us understand how Jews lived for many centuries in this area. We will then go to the forest to visit the mass graves where over 3000 Jews were shot and buried by the Nazis. On the way back to Warsaw we will stop and visit Treblinka. On the bus we will watch the film "Escape from Sobibor" which helps understand how a death camp functioned.