European Study Program to Poland, July 2026

The 2026 European Study Program to Poland was both exceptional and exhausting. I have long wanted this program to give each Lerner Fellow more than a sequence of sites. The design and flow are meant to let participants explore different aspects of the Holocaust in greater depth. It was wonderful to have Professor Robert Jan van Pelt with us as scholar-in-residence, and we had a terrific group of Alfred Lerner Fellows from Alabama, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, and South Carolina.

On July 4, 2026, 14 JFR Alfred Lerner Fellows landed in Warsaw. After we reached our hotel, we had lunch with Dr. Anna Bando, Chair Emeritus of the Polish Society for the Righteous, and Dr. Andrzej Mikolajkow, President of the Polish Society for the Righteous. We spent a lovely afternoon together.

On Monday we went to the Jewish Historical Institute for a private tour with an emphasis on the Ringelblum archives. We then proceeded to the Polish Foreign Ministry to meet with Secretary of State Wladyslaw Bartoszewski. During our time with Minister Bartoszewski, we discussed a wide range of topics, including the challenges of teaching the Holocaust in the United States. Following that visit, we went to the Jewish cemetery and then to the grave of Irena Sendler, a Righteous Gentile, in the Powazki Cemetery. In Warsaw we also visited sites from the Holocaust period and spent time at POLIN, Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Dr. Dariusz Stola, Director of POLIN, joined our group for lunch. We went to Tykocin and Treblinka.

We left Warsaw and traveled to Chelmno to visit the remains of the camp at the manor site, and then to the Rzuchow Forest, where the Jews who were murdered at Chelmno were buried. From there we continued to Lodz. While in Lodz we visited the Radegast Station, the deportation point for Jews from the Lodz ghetto; the Jewish cemetery; and the Marek Edelman Dialogue Center and Survivor Park. At Survivor Park we went to the tree planted for Roman Kent, JFR's former Board President.

We then went to Oswiecim, where we spent three days. There we were joined by Pawel Sawiciki, from the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum and Memorial and also a JFR Lerner Fellow. We spent hours visiting Auschwitz and Birkenau. We ended our time in Poland in Krakow.

As the events of the Holocaust recede from memory, and especially with the recent and alarming rise in antisemitism, it is ever more important that our teachers study the history of the Holocaust so they can teach the next generation. Visiting authentic sites is critical in helping an educator understand that which happened to European Jewry.

Please see more photographs from our Study Program in the 2026 European Study Program gallery. This account also appears in the August 2026 issue of News from the 19th Floor.