Jewish Journey to Eastern Europe, May 21–30, 2023

POST TOUR ONE-DAY ADD-ON TO LODZ (MAY 30): THE CITY OF FOUR CULTURES

We are thrilled that you may be joining us on our Jewish Journey to Eastern Europe from May 21 to May 30, 2023.  We have designed our ten-day trip to take you on a deep dive into a thousand years of Jewish life in Lithuania and Poland.  Every day we will visit sites where Jewish communities were once the majority, and we will connect with a thousand years of history over the course of our travels. 

We recognize that there more to see in Poland than we can do in our time together! So, for participants who might wish to do and see more during their visit, we are pleased to offer an additional one-day tour to Lodz that may be added to the end of our trip, beginning on Tuesday, May 30. Please note, these tours will be based on group interest.  If you wish to take the Lodz trip, please let us know, and we can find out pricing based on the number of interested participants.

Important note:

The tour to Lodz will start in Krakow, where the group tour: the Workers Circle Jewish Journey to Lithuania and Poland ends on Tuesday, May 30, 2023.

The Lodz tour will begin at 9:00 am on May 30, 2023, and the participants must check-out before breakfast. Their luggage will be loaded onto a van and taken to Warsaw, where participants will spend an additional overnight stay. The tour includes light lunch and dinner. If you participate in the add-on tour, you should schedule your plane departures to the USA from Warsaw as of May 31 or June 1, 2023.

The participants who decide to take either of the  additional tours offered, are kindly asked to contact Aleksandra Makuch, Associate Director, Taube Center, at: amakuch@taubejewishheritagetours.com as extra accommodation bookings will be required both in Krakow and Warsaw. Tour participation must be confirmed 90 days prior to May 30 which is: February 27, 2023.

LODZ: THE CITY OF FOUR CULTURES

Date: Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Duration: 9:00 am – 9:00 pm (dinner included)
Transportation: airconditioned van/coach
Price: TBA
Number of people: max 25 people, min 10 
Led by a professional guide and accompanied by TJHT staff member throughout the tour 


Join us in exploring Lodz: The City of Four Cultures!

The city of Lodz, the birthplace of such notable individuals as pianist Arthur Rubinstein, artist Arthur Szyk and architect David Libeskind, was once known for its booming textile industry and considered the Manchester of the East. Lodz was an industrial “promised land” of opportunity for Poles, Jews, Germans, and Russians in the 19th century, during which it grew from a village of 500 into a great industrial city of over 500,000 inhabitants.

The center of the city, which survived World War II mostly unscathed, is filled with an eclectic array of architectural styles -- palaces and villas of industrial moguls located next to vast complexes of textile factories and blocks of 19th century tenements.

The Lodz Ghetto, referred to as the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, was operational longer than any other ghetto in occupied Poland and was the most isolated.  It was the last ghetto to be liquidated and therefore had the most survivors.

After the war, Lodz, until the 1968 Communist anti-Semitic campaign, was home to a significant community of surviving Polish Jews. The post war community, many Yiddish speaking, was made up of Polish Jews who had survived the war in the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, but who were mostly not originally from Lodz.  Today’s Jewish community is small but it is attracting new members annually.

Highlights include:

  • Marek Edelman Center for Dialogue is an institution that promotes the multicultural and historical heritage of Lodz through education, publishing, art projects and commemorative events.

  • The Survivors Park. An initiative of the Mayor of Lodz in 2004 on the 60th anniversary of the annihilation of the city’s Jewish Community, commemorated through planting memorial trees by the survivors of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto.

  • Tour of Piotrkowska Street, the heart of Lodz, one of the longest commercial streets in the world.

  • Tour of the Lodz Ghetto, the New Jewish Cemetery, and a visit to the Radegast memorial.

  • Visit to the Museum of the City of Lodz that is housed in the former palace of the Poznanski family.

  • Visit Manufaktura, the shopping center located in the beautiful brick buildings of the former 19th-century industrial estate of Izrael Poznanski.

  • Lunch in Manufaktura

  • Meeting with members of the Lodz Jewish community

  • Dinner before departing for Warsaw