For hundreds of years, Jews and Poles formed a common society. That society was demolished by the Second World War. Young Poles and Jews are rediscovering the world that existed during the Jewish College Student Visits to Poland.

Since its beginning, the Forum for Dialogue Among Nations has been successfully organizing youth meetings for Polish and Jewish high-school students. Organizers of these meetings wish for the two nations to know their respective histories and traditions. The meetings last only several hours, but their results are so spectacular that the Forum has decided to expand the idea and to create a program of one-week visits, this time for American college students.




During the project, Poles and Jews get to know each other while discovering their common heritage. Over a Shabbat dinner they talk with Jews living in Poland. They restore cemeteries together with Poles, who care for the pre-war Jewish memory.

An important element of their stay are visits to places identified with Jewish life in Poland, like Kazimierz in Crakow, or small Jewish towns in Galicia, along with sites of the Shoah (Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bełżec, Treblinka).

The students may discuss their shared history with journalists specializing in the subject of Polish-Jewish relations, or with historians researching the experience of the Second World War or the sources of anti-Semitism.

"This project will enable young Jews to see both the destruction as well as the rebirth of Jewish life and Polish-Jewish dialogue. It is the ultimate Jewish experience."

Rabbi Michael Schudrich, chief rabbi of Poland

"The history shared by Poles and Jews was marked with suffering. What we need now is dialogue."

Archbishop Józef Życiński, archdiocese of Lublin