Following the study of the Jewish experience in Europe during the Middle Ages and the Modern Period, URJ Heller High students join together in a 5-7 day pilgrimage to Krakow, Lublin, and Warsaw in Poland. The pilgrimage includes a moving and meaningful visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek concentration camps.

In Krakow, we delve into the Jewish experience in Poland in the late Middle Ages and the Modern Period leading up to the tragedy of the Holocaust. Students visit the Ghetto area of Krakow, and the concentration and death camps at Auschwitz-Birkenau and Majdanek. Prior to returning to Israel, participants visit the remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto.

Through this pilgrimage, students are acquainted with the rich - though precarious - life of the Jews of Europe, and gain an appreciation for 1,000 years of European Jewish culture