“This isn’t the end – but the beginning of something…” said one the participants of Forum’s most recent Study Trip to Poland chaired by Friends of the Forum, David Lefkowitz and Julie Persily. Given our commitment to continued dialogue, we very much support this sentiment.

This trip to Poland was a chance for Jewish visitors from the US and Israel to learn about modern Poland and Polish/Jewish dialogue, but most importantly to meet School of Dialogue students and Leaders of Dialogue who discover, preserve, document, and share knowledge about Jewish heritage in Poland and cultivate the memory of Jewish communities once populating their towns and villages.

This time, we visited a School of Dialogue in Garwolin, where the students took us on a walking tour of their town’s Jewish past.

In Krakow, the group met with Karolina Panz, Holocaust researcher and Leader from Nowy Targ. We finish the program with a tour of Jewish Dębica guided by the local Leader, Ireneusz Socha, followed by a Shabbat dinner featuring also two other Leaders of Dialogue, Tadeusz Królczyk from Ochotnica Górna and Jolanta Świerczek-Stelmach from Dąbrowa Tarnowska.

The tight schedule of the visit included also meetings with experts on Jewish history and modern Poland, in-depth site visits to the POLIN Museum and Auschwitz Birkenau Memorial and Museum, as well as tours of Jewish sites in Warsaw and Krakow.

Photos: M.Liquornik, A.Steinitz, M.Piekarska