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These huge questions, posed by a German Jewish emigrant who became a CEO in corporate America, as well as a U.S.
Secretary of the Treasury, have preoccupied eminent historians for decades – since the Nazis and the Holocaust brought
a near end to some 2,000 years of Jewish presence in Germany and other regions of Europe.
Fortunately for millions of European Jews, there was an alternative to the persecution and pogroms of the Russian Czar,
the anti-Semitism of Germany throughout centuries, and the Holocaust of the Third Reich. That alternative was emigration
overseas – overwhelmingly to the United States. That millions of others did not emigrate for whatever reasons, resulting in
their murder, and/or the murder of their descendants, adds another huge question to the tragedy – Why didn’t more Jews
seek a better life overseas? Why did some successful Jews, such as the Mendelssohn family, continue to chase the
rainbow of assimilation, while others, such as Albert Einstein, grasped the reality of the Jewish community’s situation in
Germany and moved to the United States?
“Professor Fritz Stern, perhaps the foremost historian on this subject, has argued that the history of the
assimilated Jews of Germany was much more than the history of a tragedy; it was also, for a long time,
the story of an extraordinary success: “We must understand the triumphs in order to understand the tragedy.
” We must see the German Jews in the context of their time and, at the very least, appreciate their authenticity,
the way they saw themselves and others, often with reason. For long periods, they had cause to believe in their ultimate integration, as did most Jews elsewhere in Western Europe, in the United States, and even in Czarist
Russia. It was touch and go almost to the end.”
Amos Elon
The Pity of it All
A Portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch
These two themes – the portrait of the German-Jewish Epoch and the response of emigration to the United States – will
be the major focus of our journey. Our trip may not convey all the answers. But our boots-on-the-ground presence in today’s
Germany, accompanied by an experienced historian, will bring to us greater understanding of this ancestral saga, and
provide an enjoyable, enriching experience.
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Our Ancestral Journey Includes:
Round trip transatlantic flights
- USA to Frankfurt
- Hamburg to USA
Nine nights accommodations at four star
and five star deluxe hotels
- One night in Wiesbaden
- Two nights in Weimar
- Four nights in Berlin
- Two nights in Hamburg
Buffet breakfast each day
Dinner each evening
Tours and Visits
- Jewish Museum, Synagogue, and Cemetery
in Worms
- Walking tour, with local guide, of Weimar
and Buchenwald
- Felix Mendelssohn House in Leipzig
- Two visits with guide to the Jewish Museum
in Berlin
- Visit to the New Synagogue in Berlin
- Motorcoach and walking tour, with guide,
of Berlin
- Visit with guide to the House of the Wannsee
Conference in Berlin
- Visit to the Holocaust Memorial and Education
Center in Berlin
- Tour with guide of the Ballinstadt Emigration
Center in Hamburg
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Lectures
The History of the Jews in Germany
and Eastern Europe
| 3rd Day |
The Early Centuries: The Roman
Times
and Middle Ages
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| 5th Day |
The 18th and 19th Centuries:
The Mendelssohn Family and the
Quest for Assimilation
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| 6th Day |
Beyond Germany: The Jews of
Eastern Europe
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| 7th Day |
The 20th Century: The Failure of
Assimilation – Fritz Haber and
Albert Einstein
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| 8th Day |
Hitler, the Nazis, and the War
Against the Jews
The Goldhagen Thesis
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| 9th Day |
Toward America and the New World |
Special Features
- Six lectures by an experienced historian of
Jewish history in Europe (See "Historian"
section for brief information on historian)
- Afternoon Cruise on the Rhine
- Tasting of Rhine and Israeli Wines in Rudesheim
- Private concert of Felix Mendelssohn music at
the Mendelssohn House in Leipzig
- Klezmer music and dinner at the Jewish
Museum in Berlin
- Tracing of ancestors, assisted by professional
staff trained in genealogy, at Ballinstadt
in Hamburg
- Lake and harbor cruise in Hamburg
- Travel between cities via deluxe, air-conditioned motorcoach with English speaking tour manager
- Round trip airport transfers
- Hotel porterage
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Fly this afternoon from your departure city to Frankfurt. Beverages, dinner and continental breakfast will be served
in-flight. There is also a movie for your in-flight enjoyment.
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| The Rhine |
Arrive Frankfurt in the morning, local time. Upon arrival, we will be met and transferred to our hotel in Wiesbaden.
This afternoon we will enjoy a two hour boat ride on the Rhine – a
relaxing time to enjoy the scenery and meet our fellow tour members.
See the vineyards of the famous Rhine wines, the many barges on this busy waterway, and perhaps best of all, the fairy tale castles around
almost every bend in the River. Of particular note are the famous Lorelei
rocks immortalized in the classic poem of Heinrich Heine.
A Jew, Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) was one of Germany’s greatest romantic poets.
Set to music, his poem tells the story of boatmen lured to their death by a beautiful maiden sitting on the rocks, combing her long blond hair while singing her fateful song.
After our Rhine cruise, we will proceed to wine tasting at the cave of Georg Breuer, among the finest vintners of the Rhineland. G. Breuer is affiliated with Israel’s Galil Mountain Winery of the Upper Galilee.
G. Breuer owner, Heinrich Breuer, will lead us in tasting some of the finest wines of Israel and the Rhine.
Next, we will enjoy dinner with music at the Breuer’s Rudesheimer Schloss.
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The Jewish Wedding at Worms, Around the 18th Century
Jewish Museum, Worms |
The first Jews entered the region of present-day Germany with the
Roman legions. An edict by the emperor Constantine to the magistrate
of Cologne in the year 321 provides early testimony of their presence.
Evidence of Jewish presence reappears during Charlemagne’s rule
(768-814). At that time, Jews primarily worked as traveling merchants –
a highly esteemed profession, as it provided princes and bishops with
luxury goods such as perfume and exotic spices, jewels, and medicine.
The Romans and Jews settled along the Rhine and to the West, known
today as the Rhineland. The land to the east of the Rhine, inhabited by
Germanic tribes, was considered too hostile even for the Romans.
The leading centers of Jewish life in the Rhineland were Worms, Speyer,
and Mainz.
This morning we will visit Worms and its synagogue dating from 1034
A.D. The synagogue mikvah still exists today
. We will visit the Rashi House, today a Jewish museum, named after the famous commentator
of the Talmud, Rabbi Solomon Ben Isaac, who studied at Worms in the
11th Century. His commentary has been included in every edition of the
Talmud since its first printing in the 1520s.We will also visit the
Jewish cemetery in Worms, the oldest Jewish cemetery in Europe.
The oldest tombstone dates from the year 1076.
Weimar is home of the best and worst in German history.
The cultural history of Weimar is awesome, Goethe, Germany’s greatest writer, lived here. Schiller, who wrote the words to
Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony “Ode to Joy,” lived in Weimar. Johann Sebastian Bach stayed ten years in Weimar, composing
his immortal music.
The Hitler Youth movement began in Weimar.
The former concentration camp of Buchenwald is near Weimar.
“I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it.
For most of it, I have no words.”
- Edward R. Murrow, April, 1945
Today we will have a walking tour of Weimar and Buchenwald, accompanied by a local guide.
Dinner this evening will be at a popular restaurant in Weimar.
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Moses Mendelssohn (1729 - 1786) |
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Today we will visit Leipzig and the home of Felix Mendelssohn, containing much of the composer’s
original furniture.
Felix Mendelssohn was the grandson of Moses Mendelssohn, the foremost Jewish figure of the 18th century. Moses Mendelssohn was a renowned German philosopher, literary critic and man of letters, and among the first to bridge the social and cultural barrier between Jews and Germans. His great ambition was to end the age-old social and intellectual isolation of Judaism – some of which had become self imposed.He was the original advocate of assimilation.
Throughout the nineteenth century, generations of hopeful German Jews would celebrate Mendelssohn as their patron saint; like Mendelssohn, they sought a larger community of rational
men beyond the confines of religious identity.There was an intense desire to belong. Social integration with gentile Germans, it was thought, would be accomplished by self improvement, education and religious reform.
Although Mendelssohn, himself, had remained an observant
(orthodox) Jew, his ideas led to a modernization of Jewish religious practice. Prayers and sermons in German, a German
language hymnal, choir singing, and an organ were introduced in synagogues. This created a split between orthodox and
reform sectors of Ashkenazy Jews, which continues to the present day.
Thus Moses Mendelssohn became, albeit inadvertently, the father of modern reform Judaism.The movement spread to England and the United States.
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Felix Mendelssohn (1809 - 1847) |
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Among the six children of Moses Mendelssohn, four converted to Christianity. Son Abraham in turn had his children baptized in 1816, including young Felix, age seven.
As an adult, Felix Mendelssohn wholly embraced his revised identity as a Christian. He became a leading composer of Christian religious music and helped to revive the legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach, the most important Lutheran after Luther himself. Mendelssohn established the first music
conservatory in Germany.
Nevertheless, it was forbidden to play the music of Felix Mendelssohn during the Nazi Reich –
some 86 years after the composer’s death. Why? Because he was a Jew. A person’s ancestry –
not his accomplishments, however laudable, defined his status in the annals of Nazism.
We will tour the House of Felix Mendelssohn, and then be treated to a private concert of his music.
There will be time at leisure to walk in Leipzig and savor the legacy of Johann Sebastian Bach,
who worked in Leipzig for 27 years.
Even beyond Bach, the music and intellectual heritage of Leipzig is awesome. Schiller wrote his soaring “Ode to Joy,” later set to music in his Ninth Symphony by Beethoven, in Leipzig. Wagner
was born in Leipzig, and Mendelssohn founded the first German conservatory in Leipzig. Goethe,
considered Germany’s greatest writer, studied at the University of Leipzig.
Today Leipzig remains one of the great musical capitals of Europe. See the Gewandhaus, one
of the most modern and acoustically perfect concert halls in the world.
Next, we will continue to Berlin, arriving in the late afternoon.
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6th Day, Saturday
Berlin – The Jewish Museum, City Tour |
Back to Top |
“I had no idea of the scope of material here. The building is powerful.””
Henry Kissinger
This morning we will go to the Jewish Museum for the first of our two visits to this extraordinary repository of 2,000 years
of Jewish history in Germany.
The Museum is not a Holocaust Museum. The exhibits trace Jewish life in Germany from the arrival of Jews with Roman
legions to the revitalization of the community in recent years due to immigration from the former Soviet Union. In the
section on the Holocaust, the focus is on Jewish reactions to the gathering Nazi terror, not the industrialized killing itself.
Designed by Daniel Libeskind, an American Jew born in Poland, there is a striking connection between the exhibits and
the architecture. “The history of German-speaking Jewry is German history, and in the museum we attempt to tell it
accurately and fairly,” said W. Michael Blumenthal, the museum director, who fled Nazi Germany and eventually served
as Treasury Secretary in the Carter administration. “All of it: the towering highs and the abysmal lows, the triumphs
as well as the bloodshed and disasters.”
Accompanied by a Museum guide, we will visit half of the exhibits this morning.We will return tomorrow morning to visit
the second half of the exhibits.
This afternoon we will tour Berlin with a local guide. Sightseeing includes Potsdam Square, the Brandenburg Gate, and
a remnant of the infamous wall. See the Russian War Memorial, Alexander Square, and drive along Unter den Linden,
the main avenue of pre-war Berlin. Our tour includes the top of the Kurfurstendam (Ku’damn), dominated by the bombed
out shell of the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church and its new, starkly modern replacement. These buildings have become
symbols of the Old and New Germany. They are among the most impressive sights in Europe.
Dinner this evening will be at a popular restaurant in Berlin.
Albert Einstein gave
a violin concert for the benefit of the Youth
and Social Welfare Office of the Jewish
Community
in Berlin. Einstein’s social
commitment
was an expression of
solidarity with the Jewish Community. |
The New Synagogue, Berlin, 1865 |
Albert Einstein and his secretary Helen
Dukas at his New Synagogue concert, January 29, 1930 |
7th Day, Sunday
Berlin: The Jewish Museum – The New Synagogue –
Holocaust Memorial and Education Center |
Back to Top |
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OnMay10, 1933, Berlin Students burn the books of “unaccepted” and
Jewish writers on Opernplatz (today Bebelplatz). About 20,000 books
were burned during the evening. |
This morning we will return to the Jewish Museum where our museum
guide will show us the second part of the exhibits.
This afternoon we will visit the New Synagogue, inaugurated in 1866 in
the presence of Prussian Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck. Seating 3,000
people, it was the largest synagogue in Germany. With services in the
German language and its organ and choir music, the New Synagogue
became a center of Reform Judaism. The splendor of its architecture,
eastern Moorish style resembling the Alhambra in Spain, was a reflection
of the rapid growth of the Jewish community in 19th century Berlin.
Having been destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943, the New Synagogue was reopened in 1995 as a museum and Jewish community center.
Unlike the Mendelssohn family, Albert Einstein was dubious about
assimilation. As noted by his biographer Walter Isaacson, Einstein
believed that Jews were more than just persons “of the Jewish faith.”
Instead, he defined Jewish identity as a matter of ethnic kinship, or tribal companions. Einstein scorned what he called “the assimilatory” approach
that sought “to overcome anti-Semitism by dropping nearly everything Jewish.” This never worked; indeed, it “appears somewhat comical to a non-Jew,” because the Jews are a people set apart from others.
“The psychological root of anti-Semitism lies in the fact that the Jews are a group of people unto themselves,” Einstein wrote.
When Hitler came to power, January 30, 1933, Einstein was in California. He chose to stay in the United States and never returned to Germany.
“Those who burn books will in the end also burn people.”
Heinrich Heine, 1821
This afternoon we will visit Bebelplatz (Opernplatz in 1933), scene of the Nazis’ burning of thousands of books by “degenerate” authors.
In addition to a stone marker of Heine’s prophetic words, 112 years before the Nazis ascent to power, visitors can see through a glass
plate in the ground and view rows of empty bookshelves – a modern monument to that dark event.
Next, we will visit the Holocaust Memorial and Education Center, completed in 2005. The architecture represents a radical approach to the
traditional concept of a memorial, partly because it does not use symbolism. The grid pattern, consisting of 2,711 concrete stelae, which
can be walked through from all sides, leaves it up to visitors to find their own way in and out of the complex. The underground information
center provides information on the victims, the places of extermination and today’s memorial sites.
Dinner this evening is at our hotel.
8th Day, Monday
Berlin: House of the Wannsee Conference |
Back to Top |
The murder of Jews by the Nazis increased during the autumn of 1941, following the early success of the Wehrmacht invasion of
the Soviet Union. In January of 1942, top Nazi leaders met at a mansion on the outskirts of Berlin to organize administratively the
systematic extermination of Jews residing in areas controlled by the Third Reich – the Final Solution. The meeting became known
as the Wannsee Conference.
Accompanied by our guide, we will visit this mansion where extermination of the Jews became the formal, official policy of the
Nazi regime.
The mansion is today a museum.
This afternoon is at leisure in Berlin.
Berlin has 85 museums. Among the most impressive is the Pergamon on Museum Island housing some of the world’s
most precious artifacts and classical antiquity. The famous Pergamon Altar, dating from 160 B.C., is a masterpiece of
Greek art. Nearby is the magnificent Berlin Cathedral, the largest Lutheran church in Germany.
Stroll along Unter den Linden to the Brandenburg Gate. Visit the Reichstag, again the site of the German Parliament.
Enjoy a drink at the Gendarmen Platz.
From evil to redemption to renaissance, Berlin has seen it all.
This evening we will return to the Jewish Museum – this time for dinner and Klezmer music. Klezmer began in medieval
Europe as the music of the Eastern European Jews. By the 19th century, it had become a developed musical style, taking
its inspiration not only from the synagogue, but also from the non-Jewish culture that surrounded it.
9th Day, Tuesday
Hamburg: Ballinstadt Emigration City |
Back to Top |
This morning we will leave Berlin and proceed to Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city. It was in Hamburg that the
first Reform synagogue opened in 1811.
After German Jews came to the United States and achieved some success they encouraged other Jews to follow. A rabbi
in Cincinnati wrote a poem called “The Jewish Emigrant” that was printed in Die Deborah, a German Jewish newspaper,
in 1855:
Far, far toward the West,
There is a great country.
Far across the sea it holds out
To us its brotherly hand.
Thither shall we cross over,
There shall be the home
Where we can find rest
From suffering, ignominy and agony.
For Jews seeking escape from the persecution and pogroms
of Czarist Russia, the anti-Semitism during the Kaiser’s
Germany and
earlier centuries, or from the Third Reich of the
1930’s, there was an alternative – Emigration. Millions of
European Jews seized the
opportunity. Between 1815 and
1930, more than 50 million people left their European home
countries to start a new life in the USA,
Canada, Australia,
and South America. By 1914, 21% of Europeans lived outside
Europe. The great majority went to the United States,
which
became the largest emigration destination in the world.
Toward America and the New World
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Jewish children on a street in Zabludow, Poland, in 1916.
From about 1600 to the time of the Holocaust, more Jews lived
in Poland than in any other nation in the world. |
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So many emigrants sailed from the port of Hamburg that a village,
Ballinstadt, was built to give them temporary housing. |
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Passengers board a ship of the Hamburg-America Line around 1910.
Founded in 1847, the Hamburg-America shipping company was
amoung the first to specialize in transporting immigrants, rather
than
cargo, across the ocean. |
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Whenever possible, passengers spent time on deck to escape the
stench and the cramped quarters. But space was limited, and in
bad
weather or heavy seas they had to stay below deck. |
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For most emigrants the sight of the Statue of Liberty in New York
was an
evocative moment. Many never forgot this moment that
marked the end
of a gruelling passage and the start of a new life. |
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Albert Einstein with his secretary Helen Dukas and step daughter Margot
becoming American citizens in Trenton, New Jersey, in October, 1940.
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German emigration peaked in the years 1854, 1872, and
1881. Thereafter, the period of mass migration from Eastern
and Southeastern Europe began.
Between 1933 and 1939, between 275,000 and 300,000
German Jews left their homeland.
The primary port of emigration was Hamburg. More than 5.2
million people from all over Europe – mostly Jews – sailed
from the Port of Hamburg from 1850 to 1939.
A major reason for the predominance of Hamburg was its
Ballinstadt Emigration City at the Port. Ballinstadt is named
after Albert Ballin, a Hamburg Jew who owned the Hapag
Shipping Company (today Hapag-Lloyd). Ballin built a
departure
city for the emigrants, offering accommodations,
food, shops, churches, a synagogue, and medical facilities.
This transition venue
for emigrants awaiting departure of their
ships was enormously helpful to emigrants and made
Hamburg the leading port of
emigration from Europe.
Accompanied by a museum guide, we will tour Ballinstadt this
afternoon and learn more about the epic emigration
movement out of Europe.
After our tour, tour members wishing to trace their ancestry
can make appointments for professional assistance
tomorrow.
Dinner this evening will be at an historic restaurant in
Hamburg.
10th Day, Wednesday
Hamburg: Ballinstadt Emigration City
Tracing Our Ancestry |
Back to Top |
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Great Gatsby
Where do we come from? Who are our ancestors? These
questions have occupied the minds of people for generations.
Millions of Americans are retracing the steps of their
ancestors.
Ballinstadt Emigration City has created its own family
research center on the historical site where the emigrants’
halls once stood.
Today we can return to Ballinstadt to trace
our ancestry. Ballinstadt staff, trained in genealogy, will help
us with research and building
a family tree. The huge
database contains lists of passengers on ships leaving
Hamburg between 1850 and 1934, which were digitized
and
indexed during years of work by the state archive in Hamburg.
A total of 270,000 images were created, containing around
five million names. It’s the largest collection of passenger lists
from emigrant ships in the world. Birthplace, place of
residence and profession were
details registered by the
emigrants back then – a treasure trove for those researching
their family now.
A sightseeing tour of Hamburg by boat is also included today.
Our farewell evening will include dinner and music.
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| A Historical Atlas of the Jewish People |
This morning we will be transferred to Hamburg Airport to
board our return flight to the U.S. Cocktails and meals
will be
served in-flight, and a movie will also be available. Arrive
back in the U.S. this afternoon.
W. Michael Blumenthal
Director, Jewish Museum Berlin
Return to Berlin
Michael Blumenthal is a former Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany, who went on to serve as US Secretary
of the Treasury. Here he describes for BBC News Online why he decided to return to Germany to direct the
Jewish Museum in Berlin.
In 1945, I was among the millions of people who had fled the Nazi holocaust. I was one of the lucky ones. In
the first postwar years, the United States assumed its historical role as a haven for immigrants and opened
its doors to people like us. The population generally welcomed us and we were quickly integrated into American
society and culture.
More than a half century later, I have returned to Berlin and am once again a part-time resident of the city from
which I fled with my family. I came here because, though an American citizen since long ago, I accepted a
government invitation to lead Europe's largest Jewish Museum.
I am often asked why I agreed to do this job, and why I consented to return to this place where family members
and close friends were murdered while some Germans actively collaborated in this atrocity and most others looked
away. The reason is simply that it is time to turn the page, to face the challenges of the present and the future, rather
than to allow the disasters of the past to rule us.
However, we must also not forget the past. Today's young Germans were not alive in the 1930s, and even their parents
were either unborn or too young to be involved in the holocaust. Yet they do have a national responsibility to remember.
That is what the German government has in mind in creating the Jewish Museum, and other "institutions of memory".
The lessons of history
To remember means to learn the lessons of history and to apply them not merely to avoid the errors of the past,
but also to help meet the challenges confronting us all today and tomorrow. That is the relevance of the mission
of the Berlin Jewish Museum.
That is why I have chosen to help in this work. That is why I
decided to return to Berlin and to support my many
likeminded
German friends determined to make sure that the
lessons of history will not be forgotten.
Excerpt from BBC News, Road to Refuge - The Way Ahead
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Historian
Kenneth E. Block, M.A.
A graduate of Princeton, Ken Block has studied at the University of Berlin and holds a Masters Degree in history
from Columbia University in New York. He has served as a Naval Officer and as a Foreign Service Officer with
the Department of State in Europe and Asia.
Ken founded Matterhorn Travel and has 42 years experience designing and operating history travel programs.
In addition to World War II in Europe, Ken has put together history programs covering Colonial America and
the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Western Expansion, and World War II in the Pacific.
Ken is a member of the Kneseth Israel Synagogue in Annapolis, where his grandfather was among the early
members beginning in the 1920's.
Other historians may also participate.
Organizations are welcome to bring their own historian.
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Left to right: Vonnie Block,
Kathy McCary, Ken Block, JoAnn West |
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Our holiday is operated by Matterhorn Travel.
Established in 1966, Matterhorn Travel has carried over
50,000 passengers to Europe. Matterhorn officers have
a combined experience of 102 years with the company.
Please note the all-inclusive nature of our trips. There are
no hidden operational costs. We include all features for a
complete holiday - breakfasts, dinners every evening, and
full sightseeing.
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| Prices |
| Prices Per Person, Double Occupancy |
| From the East |
Boston, New York, Newark |
$5995 |
| From the Mid-Atlantic |
Washington, Philadelphia |
$6095 |
| From Chicago and the Mid-West |
Chicago, Detroit |
$6145 |
| From the Carolinas |
Charlotte |
$6245 |
| From Atlanta and the Carolinas |
Atlanta |
$6195 |
| From Florida |
Miami, Orlando |
$6245 |
| From Texas |
Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston |
$6295 |
| From the West |
Denver, Phoenix |
$6345 |
| From the Pacific Coast |
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland |
$6395 |
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Inquire about prices from cities not listed above.
Land Only Price: $5195 per person, double occupancy.
Single Room Supplement $895. Triple Room Reduction $20 per person.
Add $292 U.S. and foreign airport and security taxes
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