(Oops! Thought this was posted already, but so busy when I got home that I didn't have time to check. Sorry about it being a week late....) Good morning! Well, we had another amazing breakfast at the Polonia Palace Hotel, then boarded the bus (another small van like bus) for our second day in Warsaw. Our “city guide” was Yolanta who comes from a town about an hour away, but now lives in Warsaw. She began guiding after she finished university. (By the way, university education is free in Poland). We did the general Polish touring in the morning, starting at Lazienski Park. The “L” letter actually has a line through it - and it’s pronounced as a “w” sound. For example, the city we know as Lodz is actually pronounced “Wodzh.” Anyway, we walked through ... read more

Tonight we had the most amazing evening. We arrived in Warsaw and had a quick half hour to get ready to go to Beit Warsaw to services. The congregation is a progressive (Reform) congregation, affiliated with the World Union for Progressive Judaism. And here is what we discovered: 1) The main rabbi of the congregation, Rabbi Burt Schuman, was away this week. The second rabbi at the congregation is Rabbi Tanya Segal -- who was once an Israeli rabbinical student (immigrated from former Soviet Union) who I befriended back when she was on a semester at HUC-JIR in New York maybe four years ago. And visited with back in Israel the next year. We always had a very special connection the few times we were thrown together - and here she was! Amazing! She even remembered ... read more

AUSHWITZ-BIRKENAU August 7, 2008 Some say it is more difficult to visit Aushwitz Birkenau on a beautiful sunny day. Yes, the weather is lovely. Does that make it harder to imagine the atrocities committed against Jews and others in this place of hell? In any case, it was in the 80’s and the sun shone on everything. We met up with our guide, a young man who has been doing this full time for a year. He is a local Polish man whose uncle was among the first Polish local citizens who were killed by the Nazis at Aushwitz in the time before it became a labor/death camp for Jews We visited the Aushwitz part for about 3 hours then drove the couple of miles to the Birkenau death camp. We also heard about the third ... read more

THROUGH SLOVAKIA TO POLAND On Wednesday, August 6th, we left early from Budapest for Poland. We had asked our tour company, Ayelet Tours, to put on a stop in Slovakia at the Museum in Banska Bystrica instead of driving straight through to Krakow. This museum is dedicated to the Slovakian Uprising against the Nazis, an uprising led from this small city near the Tatras Mountains. The small museum is inspiring and so well done. The man who took us through, one of the researchers or program people from the museum, was so dedicated to its mission. It showed the pride of the Slovak people in their nation and in their resistance. We highly recommend it. We were also impressed that this is the Museum that created the traveling cattle cars educational exhibit a few years ago. ... read more

Good morning, afternoon or evening - depending on who is reading this… Getting caught up today (Tuesday, August 5th) during a nice afternoon break here in Budapest. We arrived on Monday in the afternoon. The flight was an hour late because of rain and such, but all went well and it was hot (no rain) when we arrived in Budapest around 1:30 pm. We met Aggie (our Budapest city guide) at the airport and started right in on touring. We began at the Heroes Square with the statues of the kings of Hungary. Aggie gave a thorough but very humorous overview of Hungarian history. We then moved on to Jewish history in Hungary. We heard how the Jews lived first up by the castle (as in most cities), and how they were excited to come to ... read more