Krakow. Jewish Ghetto and Schindler's Factory. Panorama of the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto (Warsaw). Virtual tour of the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto (Warsaw). Attractions, map, photos, videos In English

By September 6, 1939, when the German army occupied Krakow, about 65,000 Jews lived in the city and its surroundings, including those who had previously emigrated from Germany. Almost immediately, the occupation authorities banned Jews from holding meetings, using public transport, and visiting public places. Beginning December 1, 1939, all Jews over twelve must wear a distinctive sign - a sewn Star of David. During 1940, more than 40,000 Jews were resettled in nearby settlements, in the Lublin region, and also in labor camps. March 20, 1941 was determined as the deadline for the creation ghetto in Krakow, with an area of about 20 hectares. The region chosen for resettlement was Podgorze, south of Krakow's historical Jewish district of Kazimierz.

Since the special resettlement commission assigned each resident of the Krakow ghetto 2 square meters of living space, about 18,000 people, several families per apartment, now lived in Podgozhe. At first the area was surrounded by barbed wire with guards, and in April 1941 a three-meter wall was erected around the perimeter, the upper part of which followed the shape of Jewish tombstones. The windows overlooking the rest of the city were walled up. Leave the walls ghetto It was possible only with a special work pass, which gave the right to work at Aryan enterprises outside its borders. The supply of food and medicine was at a minimum level. The German administration approved the creation of a puppet governing body - the Judenrat.

The first deportation of about 1,000 elderly residents of the Krakow ghetto took place in December 1941 and the deported Jews were simply released from the carriages near the city of Kielce. The second action was carried out in February 1942, when 140 Jewish intellectuals were first arrested and then taken to Auschwitz and killed. On the night of March 14, 1942, another 1,500 residents were taken to the Lublin area and released there. The largest event took place 1, 3-4, 6, and after June 8, when about 7,000 Jews who had not received new German work permits were gathered at the Optima factory site and at Plac Zgody. They were first delivered to the Plaszow railway station, and then, in cattle cars, transported to Belzec death camp , where they were killed shortly after arrival. On June 20, due to a decrease in the number of residents, the area of the ghetto was reduced by almost half.

After a relative calm, the next mass action of deportation of Jews from the Krakow ghetto was carried out October 27-28, 1942, when 4,500 people were sent the same way to Belzec, and 600 residents, mostly children, sick and old people, were killed within the ghetto walls or in the new one. A few days later the ghetto area was reduced again. On December 6, 1942, the Krakow ghetto was divided into two parts: Ghetto A And Ghetto B, separating the able-bodied from everyone else. The ghetto was liquidated March 13-14, 1943. During the bloodiest action during the years of occupation, according to various sources, from 1,000 to 2,000 people were killed right on the streets. 6,000 able-bodied workers were moved to the Plaszow labor camp in the south of Krakow. 3,000 old people, women, children and the sick were loaded into wagons and sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where only one in five were temporarily selected for work, the rest were sent to gas chambers. In September 1943, the last remnants of barbed wire were removed from the streets, symbolizing the complete devastation of the Krakow ghetto. At the same time, poor Poles eventually occupied part of the housing in Podgorze, and most of the Krakow ghetto has survived to this day.

Krakow ghetto today

Krakow ghetto, unlike the larger and more famous Warsaw, has survived to this day practically in the form in which it met the end of the war. From 320 houses, which ended up inside the perimeter in the spring of 1941, several dozen accommodated not only residents, but also various kinds of organizations and bodies. Only a few of them at the intersection of Jozefinska and Na Zjezdzie streets have not survived to this day: the Prison, the Order Police Building and the School for Orphans. Of course, many of the buildings in the area Podgozhe have been updated over seventy years, but overall the area has retained its gloomy appearance. Most of the residential buildings look exactly the same as in 1941-1943. which makes the Krakow Ghetto area a unique place for historical walks. The excitement is supported by various guides, but I suggest you take a walk on your own and see all the key places of the Krakow ghetto within 2-3 hours.

Order police building
Jail
Trade school for Jewish orphans
Zucker Synagogue
Remains of the ghetto wall (Limanowskiego 62)
Remains of the ghetto wall (Lwowska 25-29)
Second Office of the Judenrat
Gate to the ghetto after June 20, 1942

The main of the four gates in Krakow ghetto were located at the intersection of Rynek Podgorski Square and Boleslawa Limanowskiego Street. Tram line No. 3 passed through them, and trucks with goods, provisions, and uniforms for German guards and Jews who were taken to work outside the ghetto entered and exited through these gates. Also, people with the appropriate pass could use the pedestrian entrance. On the Main Gate there was a Star of David and the inscription in Yiddish “ Residential area for Jews”.

This gate was located at the convergence of Boleslawa Limanowskiego and Lwowska streets and had only a pedestrian passage, and the movement of vehicles or military units was prohibited here. Used to deport residents to the Plaszow camp or to other camps via the Plaszow railway station.

Located at the convergence of Jozefinska and Lwowska streets. Tram line No. 6 passed through them, which was prohibited from stopping inside the ghetto. Most often, this route was used by Polish workers who moved between the Podgorze region in the north and factories in the southern part. Sometimes they threw food and things for the Jews from a passing tram. ghetto.

Last of the four gates ghetto in Krakow were located in the northern part of Plac Zgody square, at the intersection with Kacik street. Jews employed in factories outside the ghetto, such as Oskar Schindler's factory, usually left the quarter walls through this gate, on a daily foot march to their place of work. It was through these gates that workers most often carried into the ghetto walls the provisions they managed to obtain during the working day.

This square was created in the Podgorze area back in 1836. The largest open space within the walls of the Krakow Ghetto was the traditional meeting place for its inhabitants. This is where they came out of overcrowded apartments to exchange news, products, or just chat. At the northern end of the square was one of the four gates to the ghetto, through which the No. 6 tram line passed, as well as workers employed in factories outside the district walls. Plac Zgody was used by the Germans during mass deportations as a gathering place for Jews to be sent to Belzec, Auschwitz, and then to Plaszow. People were executed right on the square, and the elderly, children, women and the infirm were shot in the nearby streets. During the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943, clothes and personal belongings of the deportees, as well as furniture from nearby houses, were dumped in heaps on the square. In 1948, the square was renamed " Ghetto Heroes Square", but their memory was blurred by the placement of a public toilet and a bus stop. Only in 2005 the area was renovated. Among other things, the bus station building in the northern part was reconstructed, on the wall of which today there is a diagram of the ghetto. On the square itself it was installed 70 metal chairs, symbolizing the horrors of the ghetto, deportation and devastation. 33 1.4 meters high with lighting and 37 1.2 meters high

This pharmacy, located in the southwestern part of Plac Zgody, was the only such establishment within the walls of the Krakow ghetto. The owner of the pharmacy was Polish pharmacist Tadeusz Pankiewicz - the only person whom the German administration allowed to live and work in the ghetto without being a Jew. Pankievich supplied much-needed medicine to the ghetto, and also provided Jews with provisions, temporary shelter and even fake documents, saving human lives. Only four decades later, in 1983, Pankievich was awarded the status of Righteous Among the Nations. » Pharmacy under the eagle" it was also a meeting place for Jewish intellectuals and former cultural figures and a place to exchange the latest news. In 1951, the pharmacy was nationalized, but Pankievich retained management until 1955. The pharmacy was closed in 1967, and then there was a bar until 1981. Two years later, a small historical exhibition opened in the premises, and in 2003, thanks to a donation from the director Roman Polanski, once a prisoner of the Krakow ghetto, the museum was expanded. Today, the building of the former pharmacy houses the historical exhibition of the Krakow Historical Museum, which consists of five rooms dedicated to life and death in the Krakow Ghetto.

By the end of 1940, even before the creation of the ghetto, but after a year of occupation, Jews began to organize the German Resistance Movement. It is known as Zydowskiej Organizacji Bojowej or ZOB for short and was finally created in September 1942, after the merger of two different groups. Initially, its members did not take active actions, but at the end of the same 1942 they began to carry out sabotage actions against the occupiers, acts of sabotage, and even attacks on the Germans and collaborators. On December 23, 1942, members of the resistance even attacked the Café Cyganeria cafe, where German officers liked to gather, killing several Germans. Although members of the resistance gathered in different places, the headquarters of their organization is considered to be an apartment at Plac Zgody 6, right on the main square of the ghetto.

The office of the so-called Jewish administration of the Judenrat for three years, from 1939 to 1942, was located at the intersection of Rynek Podgorski Square and Boleslawa Limanowskiego Street and adjacent to the Main Gate No. 1. This puppet body, under the careful control of the German administration, consisted of 24 members under the conditional leadership Arthur Rosenzweig. The first director was Dr. Alexander Biberstein. The latter was the head of the Krakow Judenrat until he was arrested and sent to the Belzec extermination camp on June 1, 1942 for failure to carry out the deportation plan. Judenrat had to ensure the maintenance of life within the ghetto walls, control of minimum sanitary conditions and distribution of food. In fact, its members also collected information about residents for the Germans and prepared deportation lists. After the arrest of Rosenweitz, the Judenrat was dissolved in its original form, and the new governing body moved to Wegierska Street 16. The former building was used as a warehouse for items looted from deported Jews.

One of two important buildings on the territory of the Krakow Ghetto that have not survived to this day. Before the construction of the Na Ziezdzie street, which connected Plac Zgody and two streets in the South after the war, the former building of the Order Police was located at Jozefinska street 17. The Ordnungsdienst (OD) Order Police consisted of Jews, led by Simcha Spira, the famous by its close cooperation with the Germans. He and his family would later be executed in the Plaszow concentration camp in 1944, and during the ghetto's existence, policemen maintained order within the walls of the area and played a brutal role in the deportation of Jews and the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943. In the same building at Jozefinska 17 there was also a prison where Jewish prisoners were held before being transported to the Montelupich prison in the center of Krakow, or before further deportation to Auschwitz, or simply before being shot.

Trade school for Jewish orphans

This educational institution was founded before the war in the Kazimierz region, where most of Krakow's Jews then lived. After the creation of the ghetto and with the beginning of the redistribution of Jews within the city, it was moved to Jozefinska 25, near the Apteka pod Orlem pharmacy. Created under the patronage of the Chamber of Commerce, the lyceum educated Jewish orphans who were the children of deceased artisans and professors. workers. Like the building of the Order Police, it has not survived to this day, after the expansion of Na Ziezdzie street.

Initially, this medical institution was created in the middle of 1940, already during the occupation, but even before the creation of the ghetto, in the Kazimierz region. And then it was moved to Boleslawa Limanowskiego 15. The hospital was called the “House of Old People”, since many of its patients were already over 70 years old. Patients with chronic diseases were also treated here, and the disabled and crippled were also treated at the outpatient clinic. In November 1942, the Germans stormed the building and killed all the hospital patients.

Even before the war, this infectious diseases hospital was located at Rekawka 30, built in the 1930s on the initiative of the famous doctor Aleksander Biberstein, who later became the first head of the Judenrat in the Krakow ghetto. Since the Germans were afraid of becoming infected themselves, they avoided checking the hospital. For this reason, it became one of the few conditionally safe places within the ghetto walls. The sick and infirm were sheltered here, and the ZOB resistance movement at one time even stored weapons and contraband goods in the building. During the mass deportations in June 1942, about 300 people were sheltered in hospitals. After June 20, when the territory of the ghetto was reduced by almost two, and the hospital just happened to be in the now abolished southern part, it was moved to Plaz Zgody 3. There, the infectious diseases hospital existed until the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943.

After the creation of the Krakow ghetto, the Jewish Self-Help Organization (ZSS) was located in the building of a former pre-war bank (built in 1910) at Jozefinska 18. The body, under the leadership of the Jew Michael Weichert, ensured the supply of food to public kitchens, medicine to hospitals, as well as assistance to other charitable institutions within the ghetto walls. It was disbanded by the Germans on December 1, 1942. Today, as before the war, the building houses the Savings Bank Kasa Oszczednosci Miasta Podgorza.

After the formation of the ghetto, the so-called Arbeitsamt (Employment Office) was located in the building at Jozefinska 10. Despite the completely innocuous name, the body provided full employment for all ghetto Jews over 14 years of age, of both sexes. About 60% of the Jews in the Krakow ghetto were eventually employed in German enterprises outside its borders. The rest were used for clearing snow in winter, sweeping streets in warm weather, construction and various auxiliary work. Each worker had to have a special document, a work card, updated monthly in the Arbeitsamt building. It made it possible to avoid deportations to death camps, and to leave the ghetto walls every day and return after a shift. Enterprises paid the German administration 4-5 zlotys per worker per day, and the latter received nothing from it.

Initially, the establishment of the Communal Jewish Hospital was located in the Kazimierz district, and after the creation of the ghetto it moved to Jozefinska 14, next to the German employment office. Not only Jews from the ghetto itself were treated here, but also from other settlements in the Krakow region. During the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943, all residents and doctors were brutally killed by the Germans. This scene, among others, became famous thanks to the film" Schindler's list».

Before the liquidation of the ghetto and the transfer of the enterprise to the territory of the Plaszow labor camp, the factory of the Austrian industrialist Julius Madritsch was located at Rynek Podgoski 2, next door to the Judenrat office. The factory was engaged in tailoring, and its staff consisted of about 800 Jewish workers. Through the personal efforts of Mudtritch and his administrator Raymond Tisch, hundreds of lives were saved from being sent to the extermination and extermination camps in Plaszow. Madritsch's enterprise was known for better working conditions and additional provisions, which the Austrian businessman bought with his own money.

The capacity of the Optima factory, which produced chocolate before the war, occupied almost an entire block, between Krakusa and Wegierska streets. With the beginning of the occupation, the profile of the factory was changed, and now Jewish workers were engaged in tailoring and making shoes. During the mass deportations of June 6, 1942, most of the captured Jews were temporarily held in the Optima factory before being sent to Belzec. The original Optima buildings have not survived to this day in their original form. At the same time, on the facade of the building at Krakusa 7 you can see the original Optima sign.

This orphanage in Krakow was created before the war, in 1936, and was located at Krakusa 8. In addition to the orphanage itself, school lessons were organized for them here, taught by teacher Anna Feuerstein. After mass deportations and reduction of the ghetto area in June 1942, the shelter was moved to Jozefinska 31 in the building where a furniture factory had previously operated. After the decision to locate the office of the Order Police in the adjacent buildings, the shelter was moved for a second time further down the street, to house number 41. During the second deportation campaign in October 1942, the Germans brutally liquidated the shelter. The older children were pushed to the Plac Zgody square for further deportation, and the younger ones were taken to the Plaszow labor camp, where most of them were killed upon arrival.

Zucker Synagogue

At the start of the war, there were four Jewish synagogues in the Podgorze region, within the boundaries of the ghetto created by the Germans, all nearby. The only one that has survived to this day is the Zucker Synagogue at Wegierska 5. The occupation authorities banned any religious gatherings of Jews and turned the synagogue buildings into warehouses. The same fate befell the Zucker synagogue. At first, valuables from other synagogues in the Kazimierz region were taken here, and then the Germans set up a warehouse here, and after a while a factory. The building, built back in 1879-1881, was abandoned after the war and gradually collapsed before it was bought in 1996, the facade was restored and turned into an art gallery.

Two fragments of the Krakow ghetto wall have survived to this day. The first, 12 meters long, is located near the houses Lwoska 25-29. Only in 1983 a sign was placed here in Polish and Hebrew: " Here they lived, suffered and died in the hands of German executioners. This is where their journey to the death camps began." The second 11-meter fragment is today located in the courtyard behind the local school, at Boleslawa Limanowskiego 62, at the foot of the hill and Fort Benedict. The upper part of the wall was erected in the form of Jewish tombstones - thereby the Germans, with cruel symbolism, made it clear what fate awaited the Jews within these walls.

After the creation of the ghetto, several cafes where the Germans spent time were left open. Among them, one can note the Variete restaurant, located at Rynek Podgorski 15. Its owner was a wealthy businessman of German-Jewish origin named Aleksander Frostrer, who arrived in Krakow in 1941. The cafe was located directly across the road from the Judenrat building, to the left of the Main Gate to the ghetto. Today it houses a store.

At the address Jozefinska 22, very close to the Self-Help Organization, during the existence of the ghetto, there was a shelter for children 6-14 years old, who were sent there while their parents worked during the day. During the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943, the Germans broke into the building and brutally killed all the children and staff who were there at that time.

After the dissolution of the original Jewish governing body at Rynek Podgorski, in June 1942, and after the arrest of its leader, a new body was formed. It got the name Ghetto Management Council and new leader David Gutter. The work of the puppet body at Wegierska 16 continued until the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943, the dissolution of the council and the expulsion of its members.

After the mass deportation of residents of the Krakow ghetto to the Belzec extermination camp, on June 20, 1942, the German administration ordered a reduction in the area's territory. Almost half of the former area in the south was now outside the new administrative boundary and the natural barrier along Limanowskiego Street. A new gate on the south side was installed at the corner of Limanowskiego and Wegierska streets, adjacent to the building where the new Ghetto Management Council, which replaced the first Judenrat, now worked.

The first bridge with this name, 146 meters long, was opened in 1933, connecting the districts of Podgorze and Kazimierz. During the forced relocation of Jews to the established ghetto in Podgorze in March 1941, the Pilsudski Bridge became (like the Krakus Bridge) a transport artery for the migration of people from the Kazimierz region. During the evacuation of German troops from Krakow in January 1945, the Pilsudski Bridge was mined and seriously damaged, and its current appearance, close to the original, was restored in 1948. It is located outside the territory of the former Krakow ghetto, but is an important historical monument that deserves mention here.

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Krakow ghetto
Getto Krakowskie
Arched gate to the Krakow ghetto, photo 1941
Type	closed
Location
Krakow ghetto on Wikimedia Commons

Jewish ghetto of Krakow was one of the five main ghettos created by the Nazi German authorities in the General Government during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. The purpose of creating the ghetto system was to separate those “fit for work” from those who were subsequently subject to destruction. Before the war, Krakow was a cultural center where about 60-80 thousand Jews lived.

Story

Items abandoned by Jews during deportation, March 1943

Famous personalities

Film director Roman Polanski, one of the ghetto survivors, described his childhood experiences in his memoir, The Novel. He recalls that the first months in the ghetto were normal, although its inhabitants were sometimes tormented by fear.
Polish actress and author Roma Lidowska, Polanski's cousin who was rescued and survived the ghetto as a little girl, many years later wrote a book based on her memoirs, The Girl in the Red Coat. She was featured in the film Schindler's List.
The only pharmacy operating in the ghetto belonged to Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist who, at his request, received permission from the German authorities to work in his pharmacy “Under the Eagle”. In recognition of his services in rescuing Jews from the ghetto, he received the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" from Yad Vashem. Pankiewicz published a book about his life in the ghetto called "The Pharmacy of the Krakow Ghetto."
German businessman Oskar Schindler came to Krakow to recruit workers from the ghetto for his enamelware factory. He began to treat the inhabitants of the ghetto with sympathy. In 1942, he witnessed the deportation of the ghetto inhabitants to Plaszow, which was carried out extremely roughly. He subsequently made incredible efforts to save the Jews imprisoned in Plaszow, which was reflected in Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List. Despite Schindler's efforts, 300 of his workers were transported to Auschwitz, and only his personal intervention saved them from death.
Mordechai Gebirtig, one of the most influential and popular writers of Yiddish songs and poems, died in the ghetto in 1942.
Miriam Akavia is an Israeli writer who survived the ghetto and concentration camps.
Richard Horowitz is one of the youngest prisoners of Auschwitz, a world famous photographer.

Literature

In English:

Graf, Malvina (1989). The Kraków Ghetto and the Plaszów Camp Remembered. Tallahassee: The Florida State University Press.
Polanski, Roman. (1984). Roman. New York: William Morrow and Company.
Katz, Alfred. (1970). Poland's Ghettos at War. New York: Twayne Publishers.
Weiner, Rebecca.

In Polish:

Alexander Bieberstein, Zagłada Żydów w Krakowie
Katarzyna Zimmerer, Zamordowany świat. Losy Żydów w Krakowie 1939-1945
Tadeusz Pankiewicz, Apteka w getcie krakowskim
Stella Madej-Muller Dziewczynka z listy Schindlera
Roma Ligocka, Dziewczynka w czerwonym płaszczyku
Roman Kiełkowski …Zlikwidować na miejscu

Links

Notification: The preliminary basis for this article was a similar article in http://ru.wikipedia.org, under the terms of CC-BY-SA, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, which was subsequently changed, corrected and edited.

Residents of Krakow say that if you want to have an interesting and eventful time, then you need to go to Kazimierz - the “Jewish” quarter, where you can find entertainment for every taste, be it ethnic fairs or concerts of punk bands. But how many people know that during the Nazi occupation the entire Jewish population of Krakow and Kazimierz in particular had to move to the Podgórze area, which is located on the other side of the Vistula and was subsequently surrounded by a wall?

After the occupation, Jews were subjected to persecution and persecution. Before the war, 60-80 thousand Jews lived in Krakow, of which only 15 thousand workers and members of their families were allowed to stay in the city.

In October 1942, a particularly strict selection was carried out in the ghetto. German police chiefs and German factory directors selected mainly those with critical skills, while other Jews, including family members of the selected workers, were handed over for deportation.

"...The youth had a different mood. They rebelled with all their vitality, not agreeing to give up... Despite the strong desire to live, they were ready for a fight that would lead them to certain death... The possibility of crossing the border of Hungary was also discussed. But in the depths in their souls they always asked themselves the question of how to survive until the end of the war. They wanted to die in battle, but still could not come to terms with the thought that they would all fall... There would be no one left to tell about everything that happened. Everything that happened. What they wanted was for at least a small group of people to survive and become a monument to the movement..."(With) Gusta Davidzon-Dranger

"Ghetto Heroes Square" The metal chairs remind us that during the period of the eviction of Jews and their sending to camps, all furniture was removed from the houses. Some sources say that this was also done so that no one could hide babies in the house.

The ghetto was surrounded by walls that separated it from other areas of the city; in those places where there was no wall, there were wire fences. All windows and doors facing the “Aryan” side were bricked up by order. It was possible to enter the ghetto only through 4 guarded entrances. The walls consisted of panels that looked like gravestones. Some fragments remain today.

Polish families evicted from Podgórze found refuge in former Jewish settlements outside the newly formed ghetto, in Kazimierz. Meanwhile, 15 thousand Jews were placed in an area where previously 3 thousand people lived. The area occupied 30 streets, 320 residential buildings and 3,167 rooms. As a result, four Jewish families lived in one apartment, and many less fortunate Jews lived right on the street.

The guide said that this is the only house of those times that has retained its original appearance. It was in these houses that Jews were settled. According to him, only 2 square meters were allocated per person. m of living space.

The only pharmacy operating in the ghetto belonged to Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist who, at his request, received permission from the German authorities to work in his pharmacy “Under the Eagle”. In recognition of his services in rescuing Jews from the ghetto, he received the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” from Yad Vashem. Pankiewicz published a book about his life in the ghetto called "The Pharmacy of the Krakow Ghetto."

The famous Schindler factory and its surroundings.
Oskar Schindler came to Krakow to recruit workers from the ghetto for his enamelware factory. He began to treat the inhabitants of the ghetto with sympathy. In 1942, he witnessed the deportation of the ghetto inhabitants to Plaszow, which was carried out extremely roughly. Subsequently, he made incredible efforts to save the Jews imprisoned in Plaszow. Despite Schindler's efforts, 300 of his workers were transported to Auschwitz, and only his personal intervention saved them from death. Oskar Schindler saved more people from death in the gas chambers than anyone in the history of the war. He took 1,100 prisoners from Plaszow to a camp built with his money in Brienlitz, thereby saving them from extermination in Auschwitz. These 1,100 prisoners made up his famous list.

If Julius Madrid had entered into an alliance with Oskar Schindler, who repeatedly proposed this to him, the list would have been expanded to 3,000 names. Throughout 1944-1945, Schindler continued to rescue Jewish prisoners of Auschwitz, in groups of 300-500 people, he took them to small camps in Moravia, where they worked in textile factories. He also rescued 30 Jews from Gross-Rosen and sent them to his camp in Brienlitz, for which he had to make an expensive deal with the Moravian Gestapo.

Thanks to this, he managed to save 11 more people, fugitives from transported columns and death trains. Throughout 1944 and 1945, he supplied food at his own expense to prisoners in a small Silesian labor camp. In 1945, he saved 120 people from Goleczow, among whom were his workers from Plaszow and small children on whom medical experiments were carried out under the direction of Dr. Mengele from Auschwitz.

Now the factory is home to the Museum of Contemporary Art and various creative workshops.

“The lines stretch for hundreds of meters. The Gestapo decide on the spot who will stay in the ghetto and who will not. Those who have not received permission to stay ask in horror: “Where will they take us?”, “What will they do to us?”, “Will we be allowed to do so?” Should we take something with us?" They console each other. No one believes that the end is really near. No one thought of gas chambers or crematoriums. The rumor is spreading that everyone will be taken to Ukraine and placed in open camps. , will be forced to work in agriculture. The Germans working at the railway station and other Germans they know talk about the new city built in Ukraine, and about the huge barracks waiting for the settlers. They say that organized life will begin there, everyone will have access to a canteen, library and cinema. They assure those gathered that they will be paid for their work there and they can calmly wait for the end of the war. People begin to believe these stories. And new concerns begin: will they be given food on the way, will they be able to take something with them on the road. food? But still, everyone who can get permission to stay goes out of their way to get a stamp. The stamp placed on the passport by the Gestapo allowed one to remain in the ghetto. It never occurred to anyone that this same stamp would help a person stay alive. And the German put a stamp as he pleased. Neither the work permit nor the type of work performed played any role. All sorts of strange things happened: someone was refused a stamp, he stood in a new line at the same table, and the same German stamped the previously rejected passport. A random coincidence, luck, the mood of a Nazi, patronage, the size of a bribe, the degree of purity of the offered diamond could be decisive. Registration ended in two days. Those who were denied the right to work waited to see how their future fate would turn out." (c) Tadeusz Pankiewicz, Pharmacy in the Krakow Ghetto

materials also taken from wikipedia.org and www.yadvashem.org

Krakow ghetto

Krakow ghetto
Getto Krakowskie
Arched gate to the Krakow ghetto, photo 1941
Type	closed
Location
	50.045278 , 19.954722 50°02′43″ n. w. 19°57′17″ E. d. / 50.045278° s. w. 19.954722° E. d.(G) (O)
Krakow ghetto on Wikimedia Commons

Story

Items abandoned by Jews during deportation, March 1943

Famous personalities

Film director Roman Polanski, one of the ghetto survivors, described his childhood ordeals in his memoir, The Novel. He recalls that the first months in the ghetto were normal, although its inhabitants were sometimes tormented by fear.
Polish actress and author Roma Lidowska, Polanski's cousin who was rescued and survived the ghetto as a little girl, many years later wrote a book based on her memoirs, The Girl in the Red Coat. She was featured in the film Schindler's List.
The only pharmacy operating in the ghetto belonged to Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist who, at his request, received permission from the German authorities to work in his pharmacy “Under the Eagle”. In recognition of his services in rescuing Jews from the ghetto, he received the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" from Yad Vashem. Pankiewicz published a book about his life in the ghetto called "The Pharmacy of the Krakow Ghetto."
German businessman Oskar Schindler came to Krakow to recruit workers from the ghetto for his enamelware factory. He began to treat the inhabitants of the ghetto with sympathy. In 1942, he witnessed the deportation of the ghetto inhabitants to Plaszow, which was carried out extremely roughly. He subsequently made incredible efforts to save the Jews imprisoned in Plaszow, which was reflected in Steven Spielberg's film Schindler's List. Despite Schindler's efforts, 300 of his workers were transported to Auschwitz, and only his personal intervention saved them from death.
Mordechai Gebirtig, one of the most influential and popular writers of Yiddish songs and poems, died in the ghetto in 1942.
Miriam Akavia is an Israeli writer who survived the ghetto and concentration camps.
Richard Horowitz is one of the youngest prisoners of Auschwitz, a world famous photographer.

Literature

In English:

Graf, Malvina (1989). The Kraków Ghetto and the Plaszów Camp Remembered. Tallahassee: The Florida State University Press. ISBN 0-8130-0905-7
Polanski, Roman. (1984). Roman. New York: William Morrow and Company. ISBN 0-688-02621-4
Katz, Alfred. (1970). Poland's Ghettos at War. New York: Twayne Publishers. ISBN 0-8290-0195-6
Weiner, Rebecca.

In Polish:

Alexander Bieberstein, Zagłada Żydów w Krakowie
Katarzyna Zimmerer, Zamordowany świat. Losy Żydów w Krakowie 1939-1945
Tadeusz Pankiewicz, Apteka w getcie krakowskim
Stella Madej-Muller Dziewczynka z listy Schindlera
Roma Ligocka, Dziewczynka w czerwonym płaszczyku
Roman Kiełkowski …Zlikwidować na miejscu

Links

Schindler's List - a list of people saved by Schindler

In Krakow, we walked a little around Kazimierz - an area that used to be a separate city in the south of the royal capital, a kind of bastion city surrounded by a city wall with four towers. The city hall was located on the central square of Kazimierz, which can be seen in the title photo. Now there is an ethnographic museum here.

In 1495, a decree was issued prohibiting Jews from living and owning real estate in the royal cities. In turn, in some Jewish quarters of Polish and Lithuanian cities a similar rule was in force, prohibiting Christians from visiting places of Jewish residence.

Jews living in the western part of Krakow were forced to leave Krakow and began to settle in the northeastern part of Kazimierz. In fact, the purpose of the privilege was to eliminate trade competition between the natives and the Jews. The Jewish quarter was separated from the Christian part of the city by a stone wall that existed until 1800.

Over time, the Jewish quarter of Kazimierz became an important center of Jewish life in Poland. Numerous synagogues were built there (seven of which have survived to this day), several Jewish schools and cemeteries.

I didn’t have a chance to visit the old Jewish cemetery, I just took a photo through a window in the fence. It was already closed.

Sausage in a jar in a store selling products made by monks. Although perhaps they are simply used as a trade brand :).

Church of the Corpus Christi. The founder of the church was King Casimir the Great himself.

During the Northern War, Kazimierz was significantly destroyed by Swedish troops, and then annexed to Krakow and became one of its districts.

House of Landau or House of Jordan. The original wooden verandas from the 19th century have been preserved in the courtyard.

Cracovia is a Polish football club from the city of Krakow. They say that there used to be frequent clashes between fans in the city, but then the government began transporting them on buses after matches and became quieter.

Sheroka Street is the center of the ancient Jewish quarter.

Signs of Jewish shops, bars inside, although it looks very authentic. In general, at the moment, the Kazimierz district is a kind of decoration, because only about 200 Jews live here.

But despite this, in Kazimierz, which for many centuries was the center of Jewish culture in southern Poland, a festival of Jewish culture is held every year.

Wonderful graffiti.

In this place Kazimierz was filmed one of the scenes of the film “Schindler’s List” based on the novel “Schindler’s Ark” by Thomas Keneally, written under impressions of the life of Leopold Pfefferberg, who survived the Holocaust. "Schindler's List" is the most expensive (as of 2009) black and white film. Its budget is $25 million. And the most commercially profitable project. Worldwide box office receipts amounted to $321 million.

Spielberg refused any royalties for the film. According to him, it would be “blood money.” Instead, with the money the film made, he founded the Shoah Foundation (Shoah means "Catastrophe" in Hebrew). The Shoah Foundation's activities consist of preserving written testimonies, documents, and interviews with victims of genocide, including the Holocaust.

Monument to Jan Karski, a participant in the Polish Resistance movement.

At a press conference in Washington in 1982, Karski said: “God chose me so that the West would know about the tragedy in Poland. Then it seemed to me that this information would help save millions of people. It didn't help, I was wrong. In 1942, in the Warsaw ghetto and in Izbica Lubelska, I became a Polish Jew... My wife’s family (they all died in the ghetto and in the death camps), all the tortured Jews of Poland became my family. At the same time, I remain a Catholic. I am a Catholic Jew. My faith tells me: the second original sin that humanity committed against the Jews during the Second World War in Europe will haunt it until the end of time..."

There is a cafe on the street with such wonderful tables.

And there are hares on the walls.

These are the cars that carry tourists through the streets of Krakow.

During World War II, Jews were herded into the Krakow ghetto, which was located on the opposite bank of the Vistula. A high wall was erected around the ghetto, by the hands of the Jews themselves. On Zgody Square (now Ghetto Heroes Square) people were gathered before being sent to labor or concentration camps. The chairs symbolize furniture discarded from the homes of former owners. Most Krakow Jews were killed during the liquidation of the ghetto or in concentration camps.

Someone might say that you can’t sit on these chairs, because these are monuments. But, it seems to me, there is nothing wrong with this, because life goes on and you need to live, and be happy, and just remember what happened, and do everything to prevent the war from happening again.

In this area there is an old pharmacy "Under the Eagle", owned by the Pankevich family. When the ghetto was being created, the German authorities invited Tadeusz Pankiewicz to move the pharmacy to the “Aryan areas.” He categorically refused, citing the fact that he would suffer big losses from the move. The building of his pharmacy turned out to be on the very edge of the ghetto, with its front facing the “Aryan side”, the old Small Market, and its back facing the ghetto.

Throughout the existence of the ghetto, from 1939 to March 1943, Tadeusz Pankiewicz helped the Jews survive. Through his pharmacy, food and medicine were transferred to the ghetto. Children were taken out through it during raids, and he supplied those who ran away to hide on the “Aryan side” with hydrogen peroxide, with which they lightened their hair in order to be less different from the Poles. He hid some ghetto prisoners in the pharmacy premises. If the Germans had exposed him, having learned that he was helping the Jews, the verdict would have been one: death.

Everything that happened on the square was clearly visible from the windows of the pharmacy. Pankevich, in fact, lived in the pharmacy, in one of its back rooms. After the war, Tadeusz Pankiewicz wrote the book “Pharmacy in the Krakow Ghetto.” For saving lives, Tadeusz Pankiewicz received the title of “Righteous Among the Nations” in 1968.

The history of this quarter is one of blood and pain. Not far from the square is Oskar Schindler's factory, which we also visited.
To be continued...

Poland.
Poland.
Poland. .
Poland. Krakow.
Poland.