Cracow's Jewish Quarter
Excerpt from the book Single White Female Backpacker from the Teresa the Traveler Series.
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The Jewish Ghetto
After checking out the Schindler's Factory, my tour guide brought me to the nearby Jewish Ghetto formed by the Nazi’s in March of 1941 in the Podgorze district in an effort to make Krakow the “cleanest” city in the un-annexed, occupied section of Poland. Around 15,000 Jewish workers and their families were relocated from Kazimierz to the ghetto, an area previously inhabited by 3000 people, while the rest of the 68,000 Krakow Jews were forced out of the city. To keep it separate, the Nazi’s surrounded it by fortified walls shaped like tombstones and boarded all the outside facing windows and doors with bricks leaving only four guarded entrances to allow traffic in and out of the ghetto. The living conditions were poor and the living quarters cramped with often 2 or more families stuffed into a small two-room flat. Many Jews were forced to work as slave labour at factories built inside the ghetto while others were used as slave labour outside the ghetto walls. Oscar Schindler recruited his Jewish workers from this very ghetto. By May 30th 1942, the Nazis began to deport the Jews to labour or concentration camps killing up to 2000 Jews right on the streets during a number of ghetto raids. We stopped at a small remaining portion of the tombstone-shaped ghetto wall that has been preserved as a historical site. A plaque on the wall read “Here stand the remnants of the walls of the Krakow Ghetto that existed from 1941till 1943. These walls have been restored in memory of the Jews of Krakow by the Mosberg Family Foundation. The ghetto was run down and seemed to be surrounded by a dark, depressing energy - as though the misery that once took place there still lingered. I wiped a tear from my eye as I took a picture of the wall and got back into the tour cart. |
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The chairs that make up the Jewish memorial represent empty chairs left behind waiting for their owner’s to return.
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Jewish Memorial
Our next stop was at the corner of the Ghetto that bordered on a train stop and a main road. An empty lot paved with cobblestone was dotted with a variety of different sized metal chairs. A group of school children visiting the site listened as their tour guide explained the significance of the chairs. It was here where the Jews waited to be escorted to the train station and deported to the concentration camps. They were rounded up and forced out of their homes leaving behind all their worldly belongings. Bundles of items belonging to the Jews were literally abandoned on the streets. This memorial represents chairs abandoned by the Jews sitting empty waiting for the return of their owners. I sat in one of the chairs and imagined hundreds of Jews standing in this very place after a round up waiting to be transported to a camp where they most certainly would suffer before being put to death. From the chair I saw a sign that piqued my curiosity so I went over to read it. It talked about the “Under the Eagle Pharmacy”, once owned by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish Catholic Pharmacist who operated a pharmacy in the Jewish Ghetto during the Nazi occupation. He ran one of four pharmacies in the area and was the only one to remain open after the Nazi’s offered business owners the opportunity to relocate to the Aryan side of the wall. He was given permission to run the only pharmacy in the Ghetto and his staff was allowed to enter and exit the ghetto for work. Pankiewicz supplied the Jewish people with free pharmaceuticals and medical supplies which were often scarce in the ghetto. He also provided them with hair dyes used to disguise targeted Jews as well as tranquilizers to keep frightened children quiet during Gestapo raids. |
The pharmacy was a hub of illegal activity as Pankiewicz and his staff helped to smuggle food and information to the Jews. They risked their lives even further by providing a hiding place for Jews facing deportation. In 1983 Tadeusz was recognized by the Jewish community as a “Righteous among the Nations” and the building that housed the pharmacy was restored and turned into a museum with the help of a $40,000 donation from Steven Spielberg who featured it in his film Schindler’s List. My eyes welled up once again. I guess for every group of villains there really is a hero and this pharmacist was among the many heroes who bucked the system and risked his life to do the right thing.
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The Old Jewish Quarter
My tour ended in the district of Kazimierz also known as the Old Jewish Quarter. It was at one time its own city created by and named after Polish King Kazimierz III in 1340. During the reign of the protective King, Christians and Jews lived peacefully alongside one another. However, anti-Semitism reared its ugly head in the last decade of the fifteenth century when people blamed the Jews for a fire that destroyed a large part of Krakow. King John I Albert of Poland expelled the Jews to the City of Kazimierz. The Jewish people erected walls around the community to protect themselves against a Christian raid. The walls remained until 1782, when Joseph II, the Emperor of Australia, disbanded the Jewish Council and by 1791 Kazimierz lost its city status and became a district of Krakow. By 1822 the walls were torn down and the Jewish and Christian District of Kazimierz became one. During World War II the Jews were forced out of Kazimierz and into the Podgorze ghetto across the river. After the war very few Jews returned to Kazimierz which was left to deteriorate after being settled by criminals and the poor. In 1988, an annual Jewish Cultural Festival began to draw people back to the area and re-introduce Jewish culture to a generation who grew up without any exposure to that element of Krakow’s history. The movie Schindler’s List was filmed mainly in the Kazimierz District even though the majority of historical events actually took place in the ghetto across the river. |
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The movie, which was not only a box office success but also won seven Oscars including Best Picture, drew international attention to the area stimulating a boom in tourism. Since 1993, efforts have been made to restore important historical sites. Jewish-themed restaurants, bars, and souvenir shops have opened to capitalize on the tourist boom. Unfortunately, out of the thousands of Jews who resided there post WWII, only around 500 remain. Most were killed during the war and many of the survivors moved to places such as Israel and the United States to start a new life.
When I finished my tour, I went for a walk around Kazimierz and stumbled upon an old Jewish cemetery. Many of the tombstones seemed to be broken and covered in moss. Later that night I researched it online and discovered that during WWII, the Nazi’s destroyed the cemetery, tore down the walls and sold the tombstones for use as paving stones. The cemetery was later restored and many of the fractured tombstones were found and returned but because the damage was so extensive, it could never be fully restored.
Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have been put through hell almost everywhere in the world. I would really like to know why. What the heck does the world have against Jewish people?
When I finished my tour, I went for a walk around Kazimierz and stumbled upon an old Jewish cemetery. Many of the tombstones seemed to be broken and covered in moss. Later that night I researched it online and discovered that during WWII, the Nazi’s destroyed the cemetery, tore down the walls and sold the tombstones for use as paving stones. The cemetery was later restored and many of the fractured tombstones were found and returned but because the damage was so extensive, it could never be fully restored.
Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have been put through hell almost everywhere in the world. I would really like to know why. What the heck does the world have against Jewish people?
The Old Jewish Cemetery is one of the many legacies left behind by the Jewish population that once thrived in Krakow. Many of the stones that were robbed during WWII to pave roads have since been restored.
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Where I Stayed...
Hotel Jan Ul. Grodzka 11, 31-006 Krakow, Poland Tel: 012 430-19-69 Tel: 012 431-23-89 Email: [email protected] Hotel Jan is a nice 3-star hotel located right in the old city. Price includes breakfast. |
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