Before the Second World War, the Polish city of Krakow had a significant Jewish community (over 60,000 people) that enjoyed its culture, laws, and traditions, in addition to coexisting without problems with the Christian community in the neighborhood of Kazimierz. After the German invasion of Poland that began on September 1, 1939, the Nazis occupied the city and subjugated the Jews by confining them to ghettos, deporting them to concentration camps, closing the synagogues of course, and with them all vestiges of their culture.
The current Jewish quarter, located south of Stare Miasto (historic center) and near Wawel Castle, was initially a completely independent city surrounded by the Vistula River. Founded in the 14th century by King Casimir III, hence the origin of the name Kazimierz, it became another neighborhood of the city in the 16th century, under Austrian rule, when the administrative limits of Krakow were expanded. It is curious that today there is no longer any separation between this neighborhood and Stare Miasto, because the course of the river was later modified.
Currently, it is a neighborhood of great tourist and cultural interest, divided into a Christian part (further south) and a Jewish part (further north). In the Jewish part, a total of seven synagogues can be visited; the two most important are the Old Synagogue (Stara Synagoga) and the Remuh Synagogue, both located on Szeroka Street. To visit the synagogues, it is necessary for men to wear the Kippah, a typical Jewish headcovering, although it is included in the price.
The Old Synagogue, the oldest Jewish temple in Poland, built in the year 1500, was looted by the Nazis who left it half-destroyed. Thanks to its subsequent restoration, today it can still be enjoyed as a museum of Hebrew culture.
The Remuh Synagogue is the only one that currently provides services to the Jewish community, given that the rest are only enabled for tourism. It is also very interesting to visit its cemetery dating from the 16th century and which is, along with the one in the city of Prague, the oldest in Europe. Its tombstones were also destroyed during the Second World War, but this meant that during its subsequent restoration, even Renaissance tombstones of great interest were found.
Moving to the Christian part of the neighborhood, different churches can be visited, such as St. Catherine’s, which are clear examples of Krakow’s Catholic tradition. In Wolnica Square, the Market Square, is where the former Kazimierz town hall is located, which today houses the Ethnographic Museum. Next to it is the Corpus Christi Church, the oldest in the neighborhood since it dates back to 1340.
Outside of Kazimierz, on the other side of the Vistula River crossing the J. Piłsudski Bridge, lies the working-class neighborhood of Podgórze, where in 1941 the Nazis established the Jewish ghetto, completely isolated from the city. Up to 15,000 Jews lived in squalor in only 30 streets, amounting to approximately two square meters per person. The original houses from which the Polish owners were evicted to crowd the Jewish community into them still stand today.
The heart of the ghetto was Plac Zgody, ironically called Peace Square back then, where the Apteka pod Orlem pharmacy is still located today, run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, the only Pole allowed to maintain a business inside the ghetto. It was in this same square where the SS forces forced the Jews to dispose of their belongings before boarding the train cars that would take them to concentration camps. It was also there that furniture and household items from the houses occupied and destroyed by the Nazis were thrown from windows. In their memory, today the square has been renamed Plac Bohaterów Getta, Ghetto Heroes Square, and it houses 70 empty chairs as a reminder of what happened there.
Other remaining vestiges include the remains of the wall that marked the boundaries of the ghetto, which the Nazis ordered to be built in the shape of tombstones to make it clear to the Jews that death awaited them. And so it happened, since in 1943 the ghetto was liquidated with the transfer of Jews to concentration camps, such as Plaszów, located in Krakow itself, or Auschwitz. All those who were not considered useful for work were murdered in the square.
Not far from the wall, on Lipowa Street, you can find the old Oskar Schindler’s factory which is currently a very interesting multimedia museum about the Nazi occupation of Krakow. Spielberg’s film, “Schindler’s List”, based on the book, managed to recover from oblivion the tragic history of what the Jews experienced in these Polish neighborhoods during World War II.
If you want to learn more about the history of Kazimierz and Podgórze during those years of horror, we recommend reading Tadeusz Pankiewicz’s book “The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy” which recounts first-hand his experience as a ghetto pharmacist, his interactions with the Jews living there in confinement and with the SS agents. Another interesting read is “Schindler’s Ark” by Thomas Keneally, which offers a broader perspective than the film that followed.
