The magic of Lublin

We will visit only Lublin, without touring Majdanek. Thus, on this tour we will explore Lublin in a much more detailed way than on this tour: Majdanek and Lublin.

Lublin Old Town is considered one of the most beautiful in Poland. The original medieval urban layout has been well preserved. And several times Lublin played a significant role in history.

The city has always been on the crossroads between East and West and a melting pot of cultures and religions. In 1569, deputies from Poland and Lithuania signed here the union of Lublin which gave birth to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It covered the territories of today Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. The Commonwealth shaped the cultural landscape of eastern Europe. The best example is the Chapel of the Holy Trinity – a combination of gothic architecture (typical for a catholic church) and Rutheno-Byzantine polychromes (typical for an orthodox Christian church) which is unique in Europe. A real synthesis of Eastern and Western cultures.

With a large Jewish community, it used to be one of the main centers of Jewish study and print in Europe. In 1500s the Lublin Talmudic college attracted Jews from all over the continent. Among its students and lecturers, we can find some of the greatest scholars in Jewish history – Moses Isserles, Solomon Luria or Shalom Shachna. Lublin was rightly called the Jerusalem of the Polish Kingdom, and even the Jewish Oxford. We will visit the Jewish cemetery, with dozens of gravestones that date back to 1500s and 1600s.

In the nineteenth century, Lublin became a major center for Hasidism, centered around the tsadik Jakub Icchak Horowic, known as the Seer of Lublin and a disciple of the Great Maggid and Elimelech of Leżajsk.

To this day we can admire the building of the former School of the Wise Men of Lublin – Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva, which in the pre-war period was considered one of the most modern and most distinguished rabbinical schools in the world.

Lublin was also made famous by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, who showed the life of the Jewish community in one of his well-known novels entitled „The Magician of Lublin”.

That rich and unique world was brutally annihilated during World War Two. Jews from Lublin ghetto were murdered either on the spot or in Belzec and Majdanek death camps.

Lublin was the city that played a special role in the “final solution of the Jewish question.” The headquarters of „Aktion Reinhard”, the deadliest phase of the Holocaust, were located here. During our visit, you will see the original buildings where plans for death camps (Treblinka, Bełżec, Majdanek), deportations of Jews and taking over their property were drawn up and “Aktion Reinhardt” was orchestrated.

How it works?

Duration:
12 hrs

Meeting point:
at a place convenient to you: your hotel, airport, train station etc.

Transportation:
Private car

Price:
4100 złoty – maximum 3 persons (5-seat car)
4500 złoty – 4-6 persons (mini-van)
5200 złoty – 7-19 persons (bus)
5900 złoty – 20 persons and more

What`s included:
Guiding service
Car service
parking fees

Extra expenses:
Entrance fees (not more than 100 złoty per person)

Book:
If you like this tour, just drop me a message with your preferred date and time. Let me also know how many of you are coming and where are you staying in Warsaw.