Itinerary
Day 1. Sunday, Jun 12 – Toronto to Krakow
Depart Toronto overnight via Frankfurt, to Krakow, Poland.
Day 2. Monday, Jun 13 – Krakow area
Arrive John Paul II International Airport in Krakow. Our short sightseeing tour will encompass such old town locations as the Cloth Hall, St. Mary’s church, the Royal Wawel Castle. Once introduced to our home base for the next couple of days, we will retire to our lodgings for a Ted Barris tour tradition – the Welcome Dinner – at which hosts and tour travellers get acquainted and learn more about the days of travel to come. Dinner included. Overnight lodgings in Krakow.
Day 3. Tuesday, Jun 14 – Krakow, Auschwitz/Birkenau
Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Nazi German forces turned Krakow into the capital of a colonial authority seated in Wawel Castle. In its so-called “Sonderaktion Krakau,” the invaders arrested university professors and other academics and then began confining the city’s Jewish population in a ghetto prior to shipping most to area concentration camps where most were killed. It was in the midst of the emerging Holocaust that businessman Oskar Schindler (portrayed in the Steven Spielberg film “Schindler’s List”) began selecting employees from the Jewish ghetto to work in his enamelware plant, known as “Emalia.” On this our first full day in Krakow, we shall embark on a specially guided tour of that very same factory (a sanctuary for those Jews chosen to work there) on Lipowa Street, and tour both the factory itself and its adjacent permanent exhibit, the Historical Museum of the City of Krakow.
Just outside Krakow, lies the small Polish town of Oswiecim, within which are located Auschwitz and Birkenau, the two former death camps the world has come to know as symbols of state terrorism, genocide and the Holocaust. An estimated 1,100,000 Jews were killed inside these two camps. Our specially guided tour – approximately three hours – will lead our travellers through what often proves to be a life-changing experience. Breakfast included. Overnight lodgings in Krakow.
Day 4. Wednesday, Jun 15 – Krakow to Prague
Before departing the Krakow region, when we rise on Day 4, we will visit one of the most astounding aviation museum facilities in Europe. On the outskirts of the city, the Rakowice-Czyzyny Airfield is the oldest aerodrome in the country and offers visitors a unique view of more than a century of flight through the most turbulent times. Initially (c. 1892) a launch pad for observation balloons, the Polish Aviation Museum exhibits aircraft built and flown by Austro-Hungarian air units of the First World War, artifacts from the birth of passenger travel era between the wars, the heart of Luftwaffe operations during the Second World War and jets and hardware from the Cold War era (including its famous “MiG Alley”) as well. Currently undergoing a rebirth, we will arrive in time to see the inauguration of the museum’s new main museum facility. We then take the rest of the day to travel west to the city of Prague. Breakfast included. Overnight lodgings
in Prague.
Day 5. Thursday, Jun 16 – Prague area
On our first of two full days in the capital city of the newly formed Czech Republic, we will enjoy a specially guided overview sightseeing tour of the city of Prague.Following our introductory sightseeing tour of the city, our travellers will enjoy a leisurely afternoon exploring on their own and taking in the busy, enterprising side streets near our downtown hotel. Happy shopping. Breakfast included. Overnight lodgings in Prague.
Day 6. Friday, Jun 17 – Prague area
During our second full day in the Czech Republic’s most populous city (the 2009 census put the city’s population at 1.2 million), we shall rendezvous with our special inner-city guide for some specific, longer visits to a number of important Prazak landmarks. Among our stops is one at the famed Prague Castle. Founded by the Czech princes in the 9th century, the castle complex is still the largest in the world, encompassing more than seven football fields of space; it includes the St. Vitus Cathedral, its ornate chapels, and the official presidential residence. The adjoining royal palace showcases (among other artifacts) the crown jewels of 15th century King Wenceslas (yes, the very same king as described in the Christmas carol); and the famous Window of Defenestration (an altercation in 1618, that precipitated the Thirty Years War). For those keeping track, this part of what used to be Czechoslovakia is where Gen. Patton’s Third U.S. Army completed its wartime advance, liberating Prague and area in the first week of May 1945.
Our tour stops also include a visit to the Wallenstein Garden, which features the Czech Republic senate building, lush garden foliage and the eye-catching baroque-era, limestone grotto Dripstone Wall. As well, we’ll take in one of the most off-the-wall exhibits of Eastern Europe – the avant-garde Franz Kafka Museum – where the expatriate German novelist’s work (author of “The Metamorphosis,” “The Trial” and “The Penal Colony”) is explored with sound and light and motion picture exhibits.
But the day’s activities are not complete. We will reconvene for a specially arranged river cruise on the mighty Vltava (Moldau) River. And while we take in the sights and sounds of Prague from the surface of the river, we’ll enjoy one of our tour-included suppers with a jazz combo accompanying our evening river cruise. Breakfast and dinner included. Overnight lodgings
in Prague.
Day 7. Saturday, Jun 18 – Prague to Terezin to Dresden
We begin a daylong trip from the heart of the former Czechoslovakia to the heart of the former East Germany; our destination at day’s end is the city of Dresden. However, we have one last stop in northwestern Czech Republic – the town of Terezin. The fortress built here between 1780 and 1790 was designed to protect access routes into Bohemia’s hinterland during the Prussian-Austrian wars of the late 18th century. During the Second World War, however, the garrison town was renamed by its Nazi occupiers as Theresienstadt. In June 1940, the small fortress in the town earned worldwide notoriety when the Nazis transformed it into the Prague Gestapo Police Prison, with the main fortress (beyond the small fortress wall) serving as the Nazi ghetto or concentration camp for Jewish prisoners. Some 140,000 men, women and children living in Eastern Europe passed through the Theresienstadt transit camp; fewer than 4,000 survived the Holocaust.
On June 23, 1944, the Nazis permitted a visit by representatives of the Danish Red Cross and the International Red Cross in order to dispel rumours of the extermination camps. The visit was filmed showcasing freshly painted rooms, newly built washrooms and even the performance of a children’s opera. The hoax against the Red Cross was so successful that the Nazis went on to complete a now infamous propaganda film showing “how well the Jews lived under the ‘benevolent’ protection of the Third Reich.” Breakfast and lunch included. On to our overnight lodgings in Dresden.
Day 8. Sunday, Jun 19 – Dresden area
Founded on the site of a Slavonic fishing village as a merchants’ settlement and the seat of the local rulers, Dresden from the 15th century onwards was the residence of the Saxon dukes, electoral princes and later kings – hence its nickname “the Florence of Saxony.” During the 18th century it became a focal point for European politics, culture and economic development. However, its legacy changed in the last winter of the Second World War, when the city’s name and identity became synonymous with the phrase “apocalyptic destruction.” In the first week of February 1945, Allied leaders – Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt – decided: “We want Dresden … The Dresden railway junction [must be] bombed,” they decided. Intelligence suggested 28 military trains (carrying more than 20,000 German troops) passed through Dresden each day. In addition, the Allied commanders wanted the hundreds of known war munitions factories (including Zeiss-Ikon, Goehle-Works and Ernemann) destroyed.
The magnitude of the destruction is the big picture. One of the smaller stories – and our focus during our daylong tour of Dresden – is the fate of the Frauenkirche, Our Lady Church, in central Dresden. At the height of the firestorm, the rotunda of the church could withstand the heat no longer.
It melted and crashed into the centre of the building causing the church to collapse on itself and be consumed in the blaze. And there the building lay in ruin through the end of the war and (because Dresden fell under the jurisdiction of communist East Germany) until the end of the Cold War in 1989. Suddenly, then, it became the cause célèbre for those wishing to see the heart of Dresden restored. Millions of Euros poured in and ultimately in 1994 the church began to rise again; a new cupola and gilded cross were in place by 2006, the 800th anniversary of the founding of Dresden. We shall take in an exhibit at the city museum (including a short documentary film about the restoration) and then visit the Frauenkirche itself to witness the resurrection of a once dead church and the beginnings of a revitalized city centre in Dresden. Breakfast included. Overnight lodgings in Dresden.
Day 9. Monday, Jun 20 – Dresden to Berlin
Our morning trip from Dresden to Berlin will take several hours, but that will leave us with some time for touring on our first day in Berlin. With our specially arranged guided tour of the city, we will visit sites that were key locations during the nearly half century of Cold War that existed in Europe with Berlin at its epicentre. The impact of that era is still visible in the Berlin that was reunited after the fall of communism in 1989. The highlights of the Cold War portion of the tour include visits to some of the remaining portions of the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie, the Airlift Memorial and the Allied Museum (opened in 1998), whose collection includes documents, photos, films, signs, escape tunnel replicas and weapons from that tension-filled era of post-war Germany. Breakfast and dinner included. Overnight lodgings in Berlin.
Day 10. Tuesday, June 21, 2011 – Berlin area
Prinz Albrecht Strasse was once the most feared address in Berlin. Adolf Hitler’s elite killers, the SS, the Gestapo secret police and Reich’s Main Security Office ran their central operations from the site. Today – on the rubble of a nearly destroyed SS Headquarters building – sits one of the most encompassing and dramatic attractions in Berlin, the Topography of Terror museum. Part memorial to its victims, part expose to its practices and part testimony to similar dictatorships before and since, this indoor-outdoor museum takes visitors through the rise and fall of Nazi-initiated terror. Threaded through the perhaps predictable illustrations of man’s inhumanity to man are also illustrations of innocence and resistance that challenged the brutal authority of Hitler’s executioners. Ironically, one remnant of the original SS building is revealed at the grounds outer extremities – the basement detainment, interrogation and torture chambers – above which rests one of the remaining piece of the post-war Berlin Wall intact.
One of the surprise discoveries in the downtown of modern Berlin is the presence – along Heerstrasse – of a piece of architecture and gardens maintained by the only British Commonwealth War Graves Commission site in the city – a cemetery containing 3,580 burial plots (527 Canadians) of Allied air forces war dead from the Second World War. And (if not visited on June 20) our tour also takes in the Berlin Airlift monument. When the Soviets cut off all rail and road traffic to Berlin in the spring of 1948, former Allied aircrews responded by flying in food, fuel and life supplies 24/7 for the next 11 months, mostly landing at Tempelhof Airport. By the time the Soviets backed down, the Allied aircrews had flown 278,000 flights (the equivalent of 250 round trips to the moon) and delivered 2.5 million tons of cargo; the monument at Tempelhof is dedicated to the 39 British and 31 American pilots lost during the operation. Breakfast included. Overnight lodgings in Berlin.
Day 11. Wednesday, Jun 22 – Day-trip from Berlin to Zagan
It’s just 100 kilometres from Berlin. It’s mostly an overgrown pine forest today. In most recorded history and public consciousness, it’s along way from anywhere and a long time ago, but on the night of March 24, 1944, this spot on the outskirts of Zagan in northwestern Poland, became the site of one of the most daring unofficial operations of the Second World War. That night proved the culmination of 10 months of work by more than 600 prisoners-of-war from 14 different Allied nations. Their clandestine planning, their complicated preparations, their united enterprize was a one-night escape via the tunnel “Harry” from Stalag Luft III, one of the most supervised German POW camps in occupied Europe. Within several hours, under cover of darkness, 76 imprisoned airmen managed to scurry down a 300-metre tunnel and then dashed for freedom in unknown Polish countryside. Theirs was the famous Great Escape. Though it’s been documented by historians, romanticized by Hollywood and made mythic by misinformation, the Great Escape was in many ways planned and orchestrated by Canadian airmen imprisoned in the camp.
Our day-trip to the site of the Great Escape will include a tour of the Stalag Luft III compound, a retracing of the escape strategy across the ground where it took place (only foundation works of the scores of buildings remain), a stop at the mausoleum and cemetery, and a visit to the Museum of Allied Forces Prisoners of War Martyrdom (housing a replica guard tower, tunnel and POW hut, as well as hundreds of photographs, artifacts and documents from the prison camp). Breakfast and lunch included. Overnight lodgings in Berlin.
Day 12. Thursday, June 23 – Day-trip from Berlin to Wannsee and Potsdam
This day-trip takes our travellers to the locations of two events that dramatically bookend the Second World War. At the early-20th century villa of German industrialist Ernst Marlier, on January 20, 1942, SS Obergruppen Fuhrer Reinhard Heydrick chaired a meeting of the Reich Security Main Office; his assistant, Adolf Eichmann drew up the protocol of the meeting, dubbed the Wannsee Conference. At that meeting, Hitler’s inner circle coolly laid the plans for what they called “the final solution” – the arrest, transport and extermination of all European Jews. Discovered in 1947, the villa’s contents and wartime history are displayed very much the way they were efficiently documented and stored – right down to the very last
incriminating detail.
Between July 17 and August 2, 1945, Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Harry Truman gathered at the Cecilienhof Palace. The half-hour, audio-guided tour reveals the blow-by-blow description of the way the three most powerful men in the world dispensed victors’ justice on Germany. Breakfast included. Overnight lodgings in Berlin.
Day 13.Friday, Jun 24 – Berlin area
There is perhaps no better witness to the 20th century history of Berlin and Germany than the German parliament, the Reichstag, which opened in the 1894. After the Great War, the German Republic was declared there. Its 1933 fire helped catapult Hitler to power; and a dozen years later, Red Army troops raised the Soviet flag over the bombed out building. In the 1980s pop stars David Bowie, Pink Floyd and Michael Jackson performed concerts on its palatial lawns; and in 1990, the Reichstag provided the venue for the reunification of Germany. But perhaps the greatest moment of its history occurred in 1999 when the newly refurbished building showed off its new glass dome (by Sir Norman Foster) and spiral ramp offering one of the most breath-taking panoramic views of modern and historic Berlin. But the view into the daily workings of the Bundestag (the debating chamber of the German parliament) is perhaps the truest illustration of “transparent” government since the building’s creation and a testament to the motto inscribed above its main entrance – “dem Deutchen volke” or “to the German people.” Following this last panoramic view of Berlin, our travellers will have the afternoon to explore the city on their own and perhaps buy up those last few souvenirs before the end of the tour.
With our “Beyond the Wall” itinerary complete, and our cameras and luggage full of memories and souvenirs, we retire to our lodgings and prepare for another Ted Barris tour tradition – the Farewell Dinner – at which hosts and tour travellers get a chance to reminisce and exchange emails and addresses to ensure the excitement of our tour stays with us all summer long.
Breakfast and dinner included. Overnight at our lodgings in Berlin.
Day 14. June 25, 2011 – Berlin to Toronto
Depart Berlin, via Frankfurt, Germany, en route to Toronto.