AJC Fellows: Bridge to History 2009

June 25 – July 15, 2008

Five students from US and one from Canada took part in this year’s edition of AJC Fellows: Bridge to History. After orientation at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York the group traveled to Poland for a three week program.
At the beginning the students stayed in Krakow where they explored its former Jewish quarter Kazimierz, the area of the former ghetto and participated in the Jewish Culture Festival as well as toured the medieval Old Town and the Wawel castle. The Krakow part also included meeting with Mrs. Janina Rozciszewska, a Righteous Among the Nations and lectures at the Dept. of Jewish Studies of the Jagiellonian University. One-day trip to Kielce and surrounding small former Jewish towns or shtetlach such as Pińczów, Szydłów or Działoszyce provided another inspiration to reflect on Jewish past of Poland.
Our Fellows also saw Warsaw where they witnessed the site of the largest ghetto and met with senior officials of the Jewish Historical Institute and the Museum of History of Polish Jews. Lodz was another stop in the group’s itinerary. The former textile factory of Israel Poznanski turned into a shopping mall and a museum as well as Poland’s largest Jewish cemetery were among the visited sites there.
After such intensive experience the students came to Oświęcim where they studied the story of the local Jewish community at AJC and met with a Polish survivor of Auschwitz Mrs. Zofia Łyś. The tour of the camps and educational workshops at the Auschwitz museum allowed in-depth study of one of the most important chapters of the Holocaust.
The nearest Jewish community to AJC in Bielsko-Biała and nearby town of Pszczyna with its Jewish cemetery were included in the itinerary of the program. A visit to Zuckerman Gate Foundation in Bedzin and meeting with founders: Piotr and Karolina Jakowenko gave another inspiring example of a grassroots initiative to preserve a pre-WWI Jewish house of prayer.
The Auschwitz Jewish Center Fellows 2009 ended with a study trip of former Jewish towns of south-eastern Poland such as Bobowa, Lezajsk, Lancut, Nowy Sacz, Pinczow and Szydlow.
The farewell dinner was held in picturesque Pieniny mountains after rafting down Dunajec river.

Please click below to see pictures from 2009 edition of the program: