The Holocaust Remembered – The Moving Story Of Anne Frank & Oskar Schindler

Itinerary

• Day 1

  Local departure by coach or Door-to-Door service, then to Holland for an overnight stay.

• Day 2 - Anne Frank’s Story

  Today we travel to Amsterdam and begin to follow the story of the Frank Family with a look at the exterior of Anne Frank’s House. On 6th July 1942, Otto and Edith Frank went into hiding in the ‘Secret Annex’ of their home, with their daughters Margot and Anne. They were later joined by Hermann, Auguste and Peter van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer. Here they stayed for twenty-five months until the hiding place was betrayed in August 1944. The people in hiding were deported to the Westerbork Concentration Camp. Every Tuesday between July 1942 and September 1944 a train left Westerbork Camp full of prisoners destined for Auschwitz-Birkenau. Anne Frank and her family were put on one of the last three trains to leave Westerbork for Auschwitz in September 1944 just ahead of the Allied Armies entering the area. It is said that Anne and her sister were kept in one of the reconstructed huts on the site. We spend time at the camp and visit its museum before we continue to the Hannover area for an overnight stay.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 3 - Bergen-Belsen & Anne Frank’s Memorial

  Continuing Anne Frank’s story we visit Bergen-Belsen. After a month at Auschwitz, Anne and her sister Margot were transported to Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp, where thousands of people were dying of hunger and sickness every day. Margot and Anne both contracted typhus and died within a short time of each other in March 1945, only a few weeks before the liberation. We visit the site of the camp with its superb Holocaust Interpretation Centre and later have lunch in nearby Celle before continuing to Berlin where we stay for three nights.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 4 - Berlin & the Final Solution

  In Berlin we begin at the Holocaust Memorial, visit the area that was the nerve-centre of the Third Reich and see the 'Topography of Terror' exhibition area. After lunch we travel to west Berlin and visit 'Gleis 17' – a platform on a local railway station where thousands of Jews were deported from Berlin to Concentration Camps in the East. It now stands as a moving memorial to this sad chapter in Berlin’s past. At Wannsee we visit the conference centre where arguably the decision to carry out the ‘Final Solution’ was made (entrance subject to modern day conferences not taking place).

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 5 - Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

  On our second day in Berlin we travel to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, a site which its Soviet liberators continued to use as a place of terror into the Cold War. We return to central Berlin for free time or you can join our optional tour of WW2 military history sites.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 6 - Wroclaw

  Leaving Berlin we travel into Poland and stop at Wroclaw. Once the German city of Breslau, it had a large Jewish population and later became a ‘Festung’ - a defended town - in 1945, finally surrendering to the Russians in May 1945. We have lunchtime here and free-time to explore the city centre, which shows many signs of WWII. We then continue to our hotel in Kraków for three nights.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 7 - The Oskar Schindler Story & Heroes Square

  In Kraków we visit the Oskar Schindler Factory and learn the amazing story behind the man who worked tirelessly to save as many of the city’s Jews as he could. The factory site is now a museum. We take a look at the site of the Kraków Ghetto and see Heroes Square. This evening join our optional evening in the Kazimierz district of Krakow, a major Jewish quarter vibrant with life. You will have free time here to purchase an evening meal.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 8 - Auschwitz

  At Auschwitz we visit what has become one of the enduring symbols of the horror that was the Holocaust. We take a guided visit of Auschwitz before moving onto the vast site of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where an estimated one million died in the ‘Final Solution’. A sobering but memorable day which brings together many of the Holocaust stories we follow on the tour.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 9 - The Heydrich Story: Operation Anthropoid

  Leaving Poland we journey into the Czech Republic, and in Prague, follow the story of Operation Anthropoid, the assassination of SS leader Reinhard Heydrich in 1942. Overnight in Prague.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 10 - Terezin

  This morning we travel to Terezin – once Theresienstadt. This former Austro-Hungarian fortified town was turned into a Concentration Camp by the Nazis and used by them as a propaganda tool to give the impression that such camps were simply for detention. We stay tonight in Bavaria.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 11 - Nuremberg

  We visit the Congress Hall which now houses a museum chronicling the rise and fall of the Nazis and linking it with the Holocaust story. We end our tour at the Nuremberg Courthouse where those who had orchestrated the Holocaust were tried after WW2, and, subject to modern-day demands, we also go into the courtroom itself; a fitting place to end our moving journey. We continue to Belgium for an overnight stay.

  Meals - Breakfast

• Day 12

  Return home.

  Meals - Breakfast

Accommodation

You will have an overnight stay at the 4-star Oud London Hotel in Holland, followed by an overnight stay at the 4-star Wyndham Hannover Atrium, or similar. In Berlin, you will stay for three nights at the 3-star Vienna House Easy Berlin, or a hotel of a similar standard on the outskirts of Berlin. You will then stay for three nights at the 3-star Hotel Conrad, in Kraków. You will stay overnight in Prague in a minimum 3-star hotel, such as the Hotel Duo. Finally, you will have an overnight stay at the 3-star Hotel Zum Storch in Schlusselfeld, around 40 miles north of Nuremberg.

Your overnight stay in Belgium will be in a city-style hotel.