Self-Guided Walking Tour: Jewish Sites in Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital of Poland, and was once, arguably, the Jewish capitol of Europe. Any Jewish genealogy or Jewish history tour of Poland must include Warsaw - even if your Jewish roots don't originate there.

When flying to Poland, Warsaw is typically the cheapest city to fly into from the United States. Warsaw Chopin is the largest airport in the area, and we started our journey there as Aeroflot offered the cheapest tickets from Dulles. After an exhausting and frustrating 14 hour journey, which included a delayed flight, a missed connection in Moscow, two lost bags, and zero customer service in English, we finally made it to Poland. 

Warsaw has some of the most interesting - and devastating - WWII history in all of Poland. The city was victimized by two rounds of bombing, and by the end of the war 85% of Warsaw had been destroyed. Yet Warsaw was also the home of the Polish Underground Resistance: the largest resistance movement in all of occupied Europe. The resistance fighters organized inmate resistance and escape from concentration and extermination camps, smuggled people out of the ghettos, and notified the British of the genocide happening in Poland.

Perhaps most famously, though, the underground resistance organized the famed Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Which brings us to our first stop on our walking tour of Jewish sites in Warsaw:

1. Warsaw Rising Museum

This museum is a fantastic first stop for your history tour of Warsaw. If you know absolutely nothing about Warsaw or WWII in Poland, then this is the museum for you. It will walk you through the history of occupation, from the first advancements of Nazi Germany, to the establishment of the ghettos, through the uprising and the aerial bombing.

After you've familiarized yourself with the history and have gotten a primer on the Warsaw Ghetto, walk a few blocks to the north east and find yourself at:

2. Remnant of the Warsaw Ghetto Wall

If there is any one location most notoriously reminiscent of the Holocaust (after Auschwitz), it's probably the Warsaw Ghetto. The occupying Germans in Poland established it in November, 1940, and it became the largest ghetto in all of occupied Europe. This remnant of the wall, which was once one of the entrances to the ghetto, stands out as an old brick building amongst Soviet-style cement. It has a plaque marking it as one of the 22 Warsaw Ghetto boundary markers, which offer a walking tour of their own. One of the most interesting of these boundary markers is:

3. The Ghetto Footbridge

On either side of Chłodna street, you will find two odd looking steel structures connected with wires running over the street. These structures and the wires mark the place where the Germans constructed a footbridge in 1942 to connect the small and large ghettos on either side of the street. The Germans desired to streamline traffic along Chłodna, which was designated for “Aryans only.” The footbridge remains one of the most recognizable structures of Nazi ghettos throughout occupied Europe.

4. Jewish Cemetery

From the Footbridge of Memory, take a stroll north east to Cmentarz Żydowski - the Jewish Cemetery. This peaceful retreat will offer a needed break from the solemn and overwhelming Holocaust history of Warsaw, and will give an insight into just how big the Jewish community once was here. The cemetery is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries not only in Europe but in all of the world; if you know Hebrew and/or Yiddish, you'll quickly come to find that many of those buried here were the scholars and thinkers of their time. The cemetery includes the graves of the victims of the Warsaw Uprising, as well as those who perished in the Warsaw Ghetto.

Crowded headstones at Cmentarz Żydowski

5. POLIN Museum & Ghetto Heroes Monument

If you're wondering how and when such a substantial Jewish population came to settle in the region, you'll have your questions answered at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Largely focused on migration patterns and the first Jewish communities arriving to Poland (or Polin in Hebrew), the museum does an unparalleled job at navigating the convoluted history of Jews, from their first arrivals in the region through WWII.

Just outside the museum is the famed Ghetto Heroes Monument, commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943.

6. Miła 18

Just a block north of the museum is a nondescript mound which was once the headquarters bunker of the Jewish Combat Organization, a Jewish resistance group within the ghetto. When the Nazis discovered the bunker in 1943, the command refused to surrender and many committed mass suicide by ingesting poison. The bodies of those inside the bunker were never exhumed, and today the mound (known as Anielewicz Mound after the organization's commander Mordechaj Anielewicz) commemorates those who died there. You will find no English inscriptions at this sight, so be sure to do any research and reading prior to visiting.

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7. Umschagplatz

The final stop on your Jewish history tour of Warsaw is Umschagplatz, which, sadly, was also the final departure point of over 250,000 Polish Jews headed to Treblinka, an extermination camp northeast of Warsaw.

There are two other notable Jewish sites in Warsaw that, depending on your time, may also be of interest. Teatr Żydowski, the Jewish Theatre in Warsaw, is one of only two permanent theatres in Europe performing works in Yiddish. If you can understand Yiddish or otherwise can enjoy theatrical productions regardless of the language (perhaps see a showing of Fiddler on the Roof!) a visit to this theatre is highly recommended.

The other sight that may be worth a visit is the Nożyk Synagogue: the only surviving pre-war synagogue in Warsaw. It is an orthodox synagogue, so keep that in mind and be respectful to Orthodox customs should you choose to visit.

Though all the notable Jewish sites in Warsaw are outside of Warsaw's Old Town, we really recommend staying inside the Old Town. There is so much more to see and do there (the Warsaw Barbican, the Royal Castle, and climbing to the top of St Anne's Church, just to name a few!) that there really wouldn't be anywhere better to stay in Warsaw.