The Chapel and The Ghetto

After visiting the salt mines, and being put on Poland's most wanted list, it was time to head back in time and visit some of the most important sites in Kraków.  The Royal Chapel was first up.

The Wawel Cathederal, also known as the Royal Arch-cathedral Basilica of Saints Stanislaus and Wenceslaus on the Wawel Hill, was the coronation site of Polish monarchs and remains the most important national sanctuary in Poland.  It is also where Karol Wojtyla, who would later be known as Pope John Paul II, was ordained into the priesthood on All Saints Day in 1946.  Wawel Cathedral is not only a monument filled with great works of art and architecture, it is still a working church. Pictures are not allowed inside, so you will just have to take a trip to experience it yourself.

Part of the tour includes being able to climb up into the bell towers of the cathedral.  There are currently 8 bells in the two towers that were built, one after the other, from the 12th to the 17th centuries.  The girls loved being able to walk right up to one of the bell and even get to touch the clapper...

We wound our way back down and out of the church.  We had done a lot of walking already that morning in the salt mines, and now around the Cathedral, so we decided that we would give our feet a bit of a rest.  We hired one of the golf cart/tour guides to drive us over to the Jewish Quarter so that we could visit what is known as the Ghetto.

All settled into her seat and ready to ride to the Ghetto.

Before the German invasion of Poland, Kraków was home to about 60,000 Jews, one of the largest in Poland.  There, they celebrated their rich, diverse culture and traditions.  But that would all change swiftly and terribly once the Nazi's arrived.  In September of 1939, troops first entered the city.  By November, all Jews older than 12 were required to wear armbands identifying them as Jewish.  Synagogues were systematically closed and anything of value confiscated.  Six months later, the Nazi's declared that Kraków would become the "cleanest" city in their control.  To accomplish this directive, all but 15,000 of the most productive Jewish  families we relocated to surrounding rural areas.  3000 Christian families were moved into the now empty Jewish houses and the remaining Jews were forced to live in the former houses of the Christian families.  They moved out 3000, to move in 15,000.  15,000 people in a total of 3, 167 rooms.  15,000 people crammed into 30 streets and 320 buildings.  About 4 families to each apartment.  And then they added 6000 more Jews.

In 1941, the Ghetto was formally enclosed, and kept separate from the rest of the city, by brick walls made up of panels shaped like tombstones.  Any windows and doors that would allow the Jews to see out of the Ghetto were bricked up.  There were four guarded entrances that allowed traffic to pass.  But rarely were they used.  Work outside of the Ghetto was strictly limited and work was the only way a Jew could leave.  Unless, it was by involuntary deportation.  

For 8 day in June 1942, thousands of persons were assembled on Zgody Square and escorted to the railway station in Prokocim.  They were told they were going to a work camp in the Ukraine. They were sent to Bełżec, a death camp. The first transport was 7,000 persons, the second 4,000.   In October of that same year, the final, and most brutal,  liquidation took place.  Children were taken from their parents, orphans and their teachers were rounded up in the streets, the sick and eldery forced out of their homes.  They were all killed.  In total about 2000 were murdered that day in the Ghetto.  The  4500 "lucky"Jews were sent to the Plaszów labor camp.  Today, only about 400 Jewish people live in Kraków.  I guess I can't blame them for not wanting to come back.

There is very little left of the Ghetto but it doesn't take much to show the horror of the atrocities that happened here.  We took a very solemn tour of the streets that make up the Ghetto.  And we stopped at a few memorials.  We did not go into and tour any of the museums (The Pharmacy, Schindler's) as we were headed to Auschwitz in the morning and I didn't think the girls could handle two days of holocaust memorials.  I wasn't sure I could either.

The chairs of Heroes Square.  There are 68 chairs, each on representing 1000 Polish Jewish killed during the Holocaust.  68,000 souls represented by 68 metal chairs.  Why chairs?  Because when the Jewish were forced to relocate, they could only take with them what they could carry.  Almost all that could, carried chairs so that they would have a place to sit.

Right across the street is #18- The Apteka Pod Orłem.  It was the only pharmacy in the entire Ghetto and was run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a non-Jew, who somehow persuaded the Germans to allow him to continue to run his pharmacy and aid the Jews who were living in extremely poor conditions.  The pharmacy also served as an underground meeting place for the resistance.  

We went and saw the final remaining piece of the Ghetto wall.  The plaque is inscribed, "Here they lived, suffered and perished at the hands of Hitler's executioners. From here they began their final journey to the death camps."

Our next stop probably doesn't need any words.  If you aren't familiar with Oskar Schindler and the 1200 Jews he saved, the movie does a better job than I ever will of explaining it.

The pictures of those he saved.

And with that, we ended our tour.  We probably could have spent hours more, wandering around and seeing a few more places, but we had a long day behind us and another long one ahead of us, we decided to call it a day.  After all, we needed our sleep as tomorrow was going to be quite a day.