Jewish Kraków

The pages and the black and white photos of the pre-war National Geographic magazine in my collection are both mute and eloquent. Mute because they speak of a world which is gone, the great pre-war Yiddish culture of Poland. Before the war 10% or 3 million of Poland’s population was Jewish and Yiddish was the language not just of speech but of a unique culture, literature, cinema and music. At the very centre of this Yiddish culture was the centre of Poland’s Kings and culture, Kraków, the city of the Jagiellonian University, one of Europe’s oldest and most distinguished, the city of Copernicus, the city where Lenin lived in exile from the Tsarist Police and the city where Casimir the Great, King of Poland, granted privileges to Jews and where the area named after him, the Kazimierz created a unique and successful Jewish and Christian culture. For before the War and the terrible events which were to follow over 70 thousand Jews lived in Kraków, a quarter of the city’s population. And this city was at the heart of Mittel Europa owing its existence to its meeting point on the European trade routes from North to South and East to West. King Kazimierz was favorably disposed toward Jews and on 9 October 1334, he confirmed the privileges granted to Jewish Poles in 1264 by Bolesław V the Chaste. Under penalty of death, he prohibited the kidnapping of Jewish children for the purpose of enforced Christian baptism. He inflicted heavy punishment for the desecration of Jewish cemeteries. Although Jews had lived in Poland since before the reign of King Kazimierz, he allowed them to settle in Poland in great numbers and protected them as people of the king.


Casimir the Great and Jews National Gallery, Warsaw.

And these black and white photos are eloquent as well as mute for eloquently they scream at us that within a few short years this great culture nurtured over 700 years would be virtually destroyed and those in the photos slaughtered mercilessly in a holocaust which consumed all before it. And so within living memory this great culture, literature, theatre, poetry and music was destroyed in the name of racial hatred on a scale and in a premeditated manner which chills any right thinking person to the bone. And the new state of Israel turned its back on the Germanic Yiddish language and adopted the inanimate Hebrew of the Bible as its official language.


Former ritual bathhouse



Before WWII, a third of Warsaw's population spoke Yiddish, the language of Central Europe's Jews. Yiddish culture disappeared along with its speakers, who were wiped out during the Holocaust. But now, young Poles are beginning to learn the language. Yiddish, the language spoken by Central and Eastern Europe’s Jews before the Second World War, now mainly survives in small enclaves in Lithuania, Russia and Belarus, as well as in the US. Those Jews who left countries like Poland for Israel after the end of the war now speak Hebrew, the language of the bible. Very few traces of Yiddish remain in Poland, once home to most of Eastern Europe’s Jews. But with the current interest among young Poles in Jewish culture comes an interest in the language they spoke.




Remu Synagogue Interior

Kazimierz, the heart of Jewish Kraków, is now a thriving district, a mixture of cultural festivals, café culture, antique shops, art galleries, restaurants and bars, a place to watch the world go by over a coffee or to catch up with friends. However, it would be wrong to talk about Kazimierz merely in those terms, for any visitor, regardless of nationality or religious persuasion, it's worth pointing out that Kazimierz's history spans centuries. It was originally established in 1335 and named after its founder, King Kazimierz Wielki (Casimir the Great), who intended it to rival the established city of Krakow.


Jewish Cemetery

It remains one of the most culturally significant Jewish areas in the world. In 1495, the Jews who were expelled from Kraków settled here, and Kazimierz became a mixture of Christian and Jewish culture. During the war the Nazis did all they could to destroy and ruin Kazimierz. After the war, decades of communist neglect left Kazimierz a crumbling ruin. It became a dark and dangerous place, a district to be avoided after nightfall. As recently as the year 2000 much of Kazimierz was still in ruins, a crumbling shell of its former self. Numerous houses, which initially gave the appearance of a squatters' paradise were, on closer inspection, unfit even for mice, since whole floors had collapsed, rendering many areas highly dangerous. Kazimierz was known as a dirty, not altogether safe place, inhabited by stray dogs and morose alcoholics. And to add to this there was the highly emotive issue of land repatriation.

Today, out of the blue, Kazimierz is undergoing a major renaissance. Both its Jewish and Christian heritage is being restored, and colour has returned to its alleys and squares. Just wandering about is an experience in itself, but not to be missed are the Corpus Christi Church, the Tempel Synagogue and ulica Szeroka - the heart of the old Jewish district. Either of the two cemeteries, the Remuh or the New, are also well worth a look. And of the more recent arrivals the Galicia Museum deserves a special mention.



With communism's fall, Kazimierz changed beyond all recognition. As well as the aforementioned art galleries and cafés, buildings have been renovated and museums opened. There has also been a reawakening in the importance of Jewish history and culture in Poland, for instance, the Jewish Culture Festival which takes place every year attracts thousands of visitors, both Jews and non-Jews alike. Perhaps one of the most important factors in Kazimierz's renewal was Steven Spielberg's film, Schindler's List, which was filmed here and which generated intense interest in the area. With its beguiling streets, unforgettable and unique atmosphere, synagogues and museums, as well as its cafés, bars and art galleries, Kazimierz is a place that anyone who comes to Kraków must visit.


Kazimierz Town Hall

The 15th-century Town Hall amid Kazimierz's Plac Wolnica central square was turned in the 16th century into a Renaissance edifice which now houses the Museum of Ethnography. Whatever was its king-founder's intention; the town of Kazimierz remained dwarfed by the nearby capital city and became part of the city of Kraków in 1800.

Oskar Schindler was a Sudeten German, a Nazi Party member, an unscrupulous opportunist and a war profiteer who paradoxically became one of the greatest humanitarian’s of the 20th Century. The man and his story were made famous by Spielberg's film, Schindler's List. In many ways he was a man of contradiction. At the beginning of the war Schindler seemed to be intent on making a fortune from the misery that was unfolding around him. In common with other Germans, Schindler took over companies that were previously in the hands of Jewish owners, in this case two enamel kitchenware companies. In October 1939 the "Emalia" factory was established in the Zablocie district of Kraków. It produced enamel kitchenware and was one of the factories that Schindler had taken over. Using his business contacts and the cheap labour that was available to him Schindler made a fortune. He lived the life of a very successful businessman and took every opportunity to enjoy his success being a regular fixture on the social scene.




Schindler Factory

The brutality of the Nazi regime brought about a change in Schindler from a man whose sole concern was profit into a man who made it his mission to save as many lives as he could. Whenever Schindler's workers were threatened with deportation to the death camps he could claim exemptions for them based on the fact that his business was deemed to be essential to the war effort. Without this status it is unlikely that Schindler would have been able to save as many people as he did. Where necessary, and at great risk to himself, Schindler falsified his company's records. For example, workers listed as experts in mechanics were in fact children. This courageous course of action saved many from certain death. When the Kraków Ghetto was liquidated in March 1943, Schindler used his close relationship with the camp commander at Plaszow (Amon Goeth) to set up a branch of the camp within his factory compound. In spite of everything that was going on around him Schindler managed to ensure decent treatment for his workers.


Oskar Schindler


Oskar & Emilie Schindler 1946

In October 1944 and with the approach of the Soviet Army, Schindler was granted permission to re-establish his factory in Brünnlitz, in the Sudetenland (now known as Brnenec which is located in the Czech Republic). However, before his workers could join him there they were sent to Gross Rosen (a concentration camp near Wroclaw) and Auschwitz. Remarkably, Schindler secured their release and yet again saved the lives of his workforce. In total, around 1100 people went to Schindler's new factory in Brünnlitz where they were treated as well as conditions allowed and where his equally heroic wife, Emilie, ran a clinic to treat the workers. A truly heroic man, his factory still exists and can be found in Kraków at ul Lipowa 4. (Plac Bohaterow Getta tram stop). To walk there takes about 20-30 minutes from Kazimierz. Both Oskar and Emilie Schindler are honoured at Israel's Yad Vashem memorial to the victims of the Holocaust as one of the Righteous Among the Nations, or "righteous Gentiles", an honour awarded by Israel to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, at great personal risk. Oskar Schindler is the only Nazi Party member commemorated at Yad Vashem.


Public execution near Płaszow Pokocim train station on June 26 1942

The persecution of the Jewish population began almost immediately after the German occupation of Kraków. From November 1939, all Jews aged 12 or over had to wear armbands showing the Star of David. They were forced to work on the road's edge, the use of the pavement being forbidden, and they were also prevented from taking public transport or entering parks.

The harassment of Kraków 's Jews was constant, their day to day existence made worse by the continuous flow of rules and orders emanating from the occupying German forces. Jews could no longer claim their pensions; those aged between 14-60 were forced to work and were given particularly hard and humiliating jobs. The Germans took over Jewish property and seized possessions: companies, shops, tenement houses, valuables and works of art.


Ultra Orthodox Jews Kraków 1931

In April 1940, the order was given to expel Jews from Kraków, the majority being sent to towns and villages outside the city. Out of a total population numbering some 64,000, only 15,000 Jews were allowed to remain. The Kraków Ghetto was created on 3 March 1941 when Otto Wachter, the Kraków District Governor, decreed that, "for sanitary and public order reasons, a Jewish living quarter" would be established. (The Kraków Ghetto 1941-1943 by Anna Pióro. Published by The Historical Museum of Kraków.)

The ghetto was situated in the Podgórze district of Krakow and eventually housed 20,000 Jews, not just from Kraków, but also from neighbouring communities. Prior to the establishment of the ghetto, this same area had housed approximately 3,000 people.

A Polish witness wrote:

"We travelled over the Vistula River like many other families. On one side of the bridge we came from Podgórze, on the other side the Jews came from Kazimierz. I remember the silence of this removal... The silence changed into mourning and sighs."

Death-Camps.org

Two factories were situated within the ghetto, the Madritsch factory and the Optima factory. Both factories used forced labour to help in the German war effort. There is no real sign of these factories now, however, anyone who goes to ul. Krakusa 7 will see the original Optima sign on the wall of the building. (The Schindler factory was situated outside of the ghetto).


Ghetto Gate 1940


Deportation from the Ghetto

The daily reality of ghetto life was one of hunger, disease and overcrowding. Illnesses decimated the population. Many died trying to get food or medicines from beyond the ghetto walls; the usual punishment for those being caught was to be shot by the Germans. Despite the prevailing conditions in the ghetto, an even greater tragedy was to befall its population. From March 1942 transportation to the death camps commenced. In June and October 1942 the two biggest deportations to the death camps took place, numbering a few thousand people. Overcrowded trains left for the camps from the Plaszow train station, the inhabitants having been earlier rounded up on Plac Zgody, known today as Plac Bohaterów Getta - Heroes of the Ghetto.

During these selections the Germans massacred hundreds people, the ghetto streets were soaked in the blood of their victims. The Germans executed hospital patients, the old, as well as children from the orphanage that was situated in the ghetto. The Optima factory saw the isolation of hundreds of Jews in extreme heat without food or water before their subsequent deportation to the death camps.

The ultimate liquidation of the ghetto took place on 13th and 14th March 1943. Around 4,000 people who were considered fit for works were taken to the Plaszow camp, whereas the elderly, the weak and children were shot on the spot, approximately 2,000 people were killed this way. The remainder, a figure in the region of 2,000, were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau.


Cafe Cyganeria

Even in these circumstances there were stories of resistance and heroism, most notably Tadeusz Pankiewicz with his pharmacy located within the ghetto. There was also a Jewish Fighting Organisation, but the reality of the ghetto meant that their capability to attack was severely limited. For this reason the JFO was active outside the ghetto. Following an attack in the centre of Kraków on the cafe Cyganeria the leaders of this organisation were caught and executed. The cafe was a meeting place for Wehrmacht and Gestapo officers, and was attacked by members of Krakow's Jewish underground on December 22, 1942. Eleven Germans were killed and 13 wounded in this action. Today, very little visible sign of the original ghetto remains. Perhaps the most obvious can be found on ul. Lwowska where a plaque has been placed on part of the former ghetto wall. In total, it is estimated that some 65,000 Polish Jews who lived in Cracow and its immediate vicinity were murdered by the Nazis during the Second World War, obliterating Jewish life and culture as it had existed before the War completely.




Ghetto wall

The plaque reads as follows:

"Here they lived, suffered and perished at the hands of Hitler's executioners. From here they began their final journey to the death camps."

So on the night of 15th March 2009, the 66th anniversary of the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto by the Nazis we found ourselves appropriately in the heart of Jewish Kraków on Szeroka Street in Ariel Restaurant enjoying a meal of Yiddish favourites, Gefilte Fish and Sephardic Carp whilst listening to Klezmer music and song by a Yiddish trio Sholem.


Szeroka Street


Ariel

A restaurant, cafe and gallery "Ariel" is located in the very centre of Kazimierz. There are 5 synagogues within 200 m distance, including one fully active (Remuh), a historical cemetery and a house of prayer, where a well - know cabbala master Natan Spira used to live and work. And at the top of Szeroka Street is the so-called "Old Synagogue", the oldest Jewish temple in Poland, where a Jewish museum is located. "Ariel" was established in a tenement house erected between the World Wars, occupying the place where an old 18th century "Rabbi House" used to stand, inhabited by uncompromising adversaries of Chasidism - rabbi Isaak Lewitan (died in 1799) and his son David Levy (Kraków `s rabbi in 1816 - 1832). Further along the street is Rubenstein’s, the family home which the perfume milionairess Helena Rubenstein left to make her fortune, firstly in Australia and then in America. Near also is the home where a survivor of the ghetto, the film Director, Roman Polanski, lived as a child.


Remu Synagogue


Old Synagogue


Rubenstein House

In listening to the superb Klezmer melodies and the haunting Yiddish lyrics we thought of the resilience of the human spirit, how a people who greet each other with “Shalom” – “Peace” and part with the word “L'haim” – “To Life” to have endured the unthinkable cruelty of the Shoah within living memory. In an calculated defiance of the ideology which made such crimes possible Jews and Goyam were on this anniversary gathered together here in the heart of Mittel Europa where the secular, the Orthodox and the Hassidic contended to drink to our common humanity and go into the dark night with a shared toast “L'haim”.




Sholem

http://www.sholem.pl



Not far away at Plac Bohaterów Getta - Heroes of the Ghetto there is a mute memorial to what has passed here designed by Krakow architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak. This memorial features 33 large illuminated chairs in the square and 37 smaller chairs standing on the edge of the square and at the tram stops. The chairs represent the furniture and other remnants that were discarded on that very spot by the ghetto's Jews as they were herded into the trains that would often take them to their deaths in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. At the other end of the square is the Apteka Pod Orlem (the Chemist under the Eagle) which was the only pharmacy allowed in the ghetto and funded by Roman Polanski it is being renovated and turned into a museum.


Plac Bohaterów Getta - Heroes of the Ghetto

There I thought of the words of Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited in mourning;

“in the world which will be renewed”

“בְּעָלְמָא דְהוּא עָתִיד לְאִתְחַדָּתָא”

Today in Kraków there are around 200 Jewish inhabitants and in Poland as a whole around 5,000. However and hearthingly there is a great awareness amongst young Poles of the shared heritage and what has been lost which translates into a determination to preserve and revive the Jewish legacy in Poland. I've relied upon and quoted from a number of excellent local resources for this piece including;

Jewish Kraków

www.jewishkrakow.net

Kraków site devoted to Jews from Kraków

www.shtetlinks.jewishgen.org/krakow/

Kraków Info

www.krakow-info.com/JewishQ.html

Galicia Jewish Heritage Institute

www.galiciajewishmuseum.org/

Cracow Life

www.cracow-life.com/poland/krakow-kazimierz