Jewish Quarter and Krakow Ghetto Free Walking Tour

About the tour

Speaking of Jewish Krakow is talking about the Kazimierz neighborhood that hosted one of the largest Jewish communities in Europe from the 14th century until the end of the Second World War. Kazimierz was founded as a city by King Casimir III of Poland in 1335. During most of the Communist period in Poland, Kazimierz became an area of ​​bad reputation, but this situation began to change with the end of the communist period.

Since 1990, Kazimierz has become a fashionable area where a large number of university students, artists, cafes, Jewish food restaurants and pubs are based. Seven synagogues are kept in Kazimierz. The Remuh Synagogue stands out (the only one in activity) next to the Remuh Cemetery and other monuments such as Wolnica or the Market Square, the Gothic church of Santa Caterina and the Corpus Christi Basilica among others.

On the streets of Kazimierz, Steven Spielberg's List of Schindler was shot in 1993, telling the story of the German speculator Oskar Schindler who used it in his

kitchenware factory inhabitants of the Krakow ghetto. The Jewish ghetto in Krakow was one of the five great ghettos created by the Nazis during their occupation of Poland in World War II. Of the more than 68,000 Jews who lived in Krakow upon the arrival of the Germans, only 15,000 workers were allowed to stay with their families.

The Kraków ghetto, surrounded by tombstone walls that isolated it from the rest of the city, was formally established in March 1941 in the Podgórze district on the other side of the Vistula river. Podgórze went from 3,000 people to 15,000 people with the arrival of Jews, crowded into 30 streets.

Among the illustrious people who suffered the ghetto are the film director Roman Polanski and the pharmacist Tadeusz Pankiewiecz owner of the pharmacy under the Eagle located inside the ghetto, which was allowed to continue the business and rescued several Jews from the death.