Tykocin Tour and Bialystok – Polish shtetl
TYKOCIN TOUR POLISH SHTETL
The name Tykocin was first mentioned in the 11th century. The town received city rights from Mazovian prince Janusz I in 1425. It became one of the favorite properties of Polish King Sigismund II Augustus who had a Renaissance castle built there. In the 18th century, Tykocin became a typical shtetl. First Jewish settlers arrived in the sixteenth century to Tykocin (Hebrew Tiktin).In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the synagogue served as an important intellectual center. In 1939 Jewish population of Tykocin reached an amount of over 2,500 people. On 25-26 August 1941 the Jewish residents of Tykocin were assembled at the market square and later executed in nearby Łopuchowo forest. Today the town looks exactly like before World War II. One can still admire the king’s castle, 18th-century monastery, and church, an astonishing 17th-century synagogue built in 1642 as well as wooden houses more than 100 years old.
On the way back we may visit the Treblinka Extermination camp (optional and additionally paid)
ITINERARY :
- Synagogue dated from the 17th century
- Jewish cemetery dated from the 16th century
- The urban layout including Kaczorowo where the Jewish society lived
- Baroque parish Church of the Holy Trinity dated from the 18th century
- The castle dated from the 15th century partly reconstructed in the 21st century
- Jewish cemetery in Tykocin one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in Poland
-
Łopuchowo – the place of execution and burial of Holocaust victims in August 1941
JEWISH BIALYSTOK TOUR
The Jewish settlement in the Podlasie Region dates back to the 15th century when small groups of people of the Mosaic religion appeared in Bielsk Podlaski. The Branicki’s charted Bialystok in 1691, they made a lot of efforts to encourage Jews to settle down there by providing them with housing infrastructure, and shops and by founding a synagogue.The great development of the city and the Jewish community in it is related to the development of the textile industry in Bialystok in the 19th century. In 1850, the first Jewish factory was established, and as early as 1867, about half of the 89 weaving factories in Bialystok were Jewish-owned. The city developed a system of Hebrew, elementary and high schools, many youth movements, diverse from Jewish society, and also published a press in Yiddsh.Before World War II, 50,000 Jews lived in Bialystok, representing more than half of the city’s population. On 26 July 1941, a ghetto was created in Białystok; it became a prison for about 40,000 to 60,000 Jews from the city and nearby towns.
JEWISH BIALYSTOK TOUR ITINERARY :
- Cytron Palace – Historical Museum – located in the 19th-century palace of Bialystok manufacturer Shumuel ( Samuel ) Cytron.Part of its permanent exhibition is a beautiful model of 18th-century Bialystok
-
House of the Zamenhof Family formerly at Zielona Street, today Zamenhofa 26 Street where Dr Ludwik Zamenhof Esperanto – the language of hope creator was born
-
So called ” Rabinnical Cemetery at Kalinowskiego Street ( now Central Park in Białystok ) was founded in the 18th century – probably in 1761 or 1764. It was closed in 1890, however, people were still buried there in 1941 During World War II, the cemetery was destroyed by the Germans. After the war the grounds of the cemetery were covered with a layer of soil and Central Park was created there. Although the territory is 2 ha, only two tombstones have been preserved to this day. The only grave which has survived was moved to the cemetery in Wschodnia Street in September 2007
-
Great Synagogue located in Bożnicza Street, today’s Suraska Street. It was built between 1909 and 1913 in the place of the so-called „Old Synagogue” which was constructed in 1764 and modeled on the Synagogue of Tykocin.On 27 June 1941, the Nazis gathered Jewish men and boys inside the building and, then, burnt the synagogue down with the Jewish people inside. Around 2,500 people died. Today, at the site where the synagogue once stood there is a monument in the shape of the dome of the destroyed building. Its designers are Michał Flikier (idea and supervision) and Maria Dżugała-Sobocińska, Dariusz Sobociński, Stanisław Ostaszewski (project and realisation). The monument was unveiled in 1995
-
Jewish Cemetery on Wschodnia Street cemetery was founded in about 1890 after the old cemetery in Kalinowskiego Street was closed. It is on the land of the former Bagnówka village (presently Wschodnia Street), in the northern part of the city, near the Catholic and Orthodox cemeteries. It is the only preserved Jewish cemetery in Białystok, and at the same time, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Poland (about 12.5 hectares). The last burial took place there in 1969. In the central part of the Jewish cemetery, there is the ohel of Chaim Herz Halpern, the Białystoker rabbi (died 1919), constructed in 1922, and an obelisk commemorating the June 1906 pogrom’s victims, constructed before the World War II
ESTIMATED LOCAL CASH NEEDED:
- 60 Polish Zlotys – app. 13 Euro – per person
- Tykocin synagogue museum entrance fee – 16 PLN per person
- Treblinka Museum exhibition entrance fee – 7 PLN per person
- lunch en route (optional)
YOU MAY COMBINE THIS TOUR WITH THE FOLLOWING OF MY TOURS:
Duration: Travel by car 2,5 hours one way in total up to 12 hours
at a place convenient to you: your hotel, airport, train station, etc.
- Guiding service
- transport by car
- water for my Guests in the car
- parking fees
- WHAT`S EXCLUDED:
- lunch
- entrance fees
- 1-2 PAX 450 EURO PER TOUR
- 3-4 PAX 480 EURO PER TOUR
- 5-6 PAX 500 EURO PER TOUR
- 6-7 PAX 520 EURO PER TOUR
(VAN for 1-7 passengers) – Driving & Walking Tour – If your group is bigger than 7 PAX please ask for the price
CONTACT INFO
Hubert Pawlik
Mobile