Thursday, August 30, 2012 - Krakow

Today was spent tracing the once flourishing Jewish Community of Krakow. Krakow is the only city in Poland where almost the entire physical representation of Jewish history is intact. We visited numerous synagogues in the morning, beginning in Kazimierz, the oldest part of the city where Jews lived. By going to the synagogues and old cemetery we were able to trace Jewish Krakow from the beginning of the 15th century to the present. Below are some of the places we visited.

The Old Synagogue or Alta Schul - This dates from the 15th Century and is now a museum:


The Poppera Synagogue:


The Remuh Synagogue:


The House of Torah Study:


The Isaac Synagogue (now headquarters of Chabad):


The Kupa Synagogue:


The Temple Synagogue (a Progressive/Reform synagogue):


The Old Cemetery:


We then met with a wonderful Polish woman whose family had helped Jews survive the war. She and her parents had been recognized as Righteous Gentiles by Yad Vashem. Listening to her story was heartwarming.


We had lunch at the Jewish Community Center and met with Jonathan Ornstein, the Executive Director. His enthusiasm and charisma go a long way to making the JCC successful.


There was no security at any of these Jewish sites and Jonathan told us that the Krakow Jewish community is vibrant, thriving, and growing.

After lunch we go to the site of the Ghetto in Krakow. This was much smaller than the Warsaw Ghetto. Below is the site of the Umschlagplatz where the people from the Ghetto were collected for transport to the trains. A memorial of oversized empty chairs marks the spot.


We visit the Pankiewicz pharmacy which stood at the corner just outside of the Ghetto and where the owner helped people to escape. It is now a museum.


Our final stop is the Plaszow Camp, just outside of Krakow which was part of the story of the movie Schindler's List. Plaszow was originally designed to be a work camp, not a concentration camp, but lack of food, terrible conditions, and random shootings of prisoners resulted in many deaths. Nothing remains except the memorial built by the Soviets.


Here we break out into smaller groups to prepare for our visit tomorrow to Auschwitz.

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