Zinar Castle

The ghetto, existing in Podgórze in 1941-1943, was a bloody and tragic stage in the extermination of Krakow's Jews.

Before the outbreak of World War II, over 64,000 Jews lived in Krakow (about 25% of the city's population). After the forced evictions from the very beginning of the war, about 16,000 remained. On March 3, 1941, the occupation authorities issued an order to establish a "Jewish residential district" for them in Podgórze, where they were to move by March 20. The borders of the ghetto (although this name was not officially used) ran along the following streets: Kącik, Traugutta, Lwowska, Rękawka, the eastern and northern frontages of Rynek Podgórski, Brodziński, Piwna, Nadwiślańska and Plac Zgody (today Bohaterów Getta). In total, there were 320 tenement houses in this area, previously inhabited by approx. 3,500 people, who were ordered to leave the area, as well as the companies operating here. The order did not cover the only pharmacy in this area, run by a Pole, Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who soon remained the only non-Jew living in the ghetto (Apteka Pod Orłem).

The "Jewish residential district" was surrounded by a three-meter-high wall with an arcaded top , mockingly stylized like matzevot - Jewish tombstones. There were four gates leading to the ghetto; the main one with the inscription Jüdischer Wohnbezirk was located at the intersection of Limanowskiego Street and Rynek Podgórski.

There was a tram passing along Lwowska and Limanowskiego Streets, but there were no stops inside the walls, and passengers were even forbidden to look at the ghetto through the windows (this ban was of course violated), and it happened that packages with food were thrown from the tram). From October 1941, leaving the ghetto without a pass was punishable by death. The same punishment faced people who were helping escapees. Soon, the use of the post office was forbidden and all the ground-floor windows on the Aryan side were bricked up, which cut off the ghetto from the food aid provided through these channels. In the overcrowded district isolated from the rest of the city, there was a growing hunger.

Soon, deportations to extermination and forced labor camps (including Płaszów near Kraków) began in the ghetto. Extremely brutal deportations were carried out in the ghetto in June and October 1942: many people died in the streets of the ghetto during round-ups and transport. Among them were, among others artists friends with each other: painter Abraham Neuman and folk singer and poet Mordechaj Gebirtig, shot in the so-called "Bloody Thursday" June 4, 1942. Hospital patients and children from the orphanage, which also housed children of working parents, were murdered on the spot or deported. Some of the deported were shot over the mass graves prepared by prisoners in Płaszów.

In 1942, the area of ​​the ghetto was reduced several times. At the end of the year, they were divided into two parts separated by barbed wire - "A" for people able to work and "B" for children, the elderly and the sick.

Finally, on March 13 and 14, 1943, the Nazis conducted a final liquidation of the Krakow ghetto. About 6,000 inhabitants of ghetto A who were considered fit for work were displaced to the camp in Płaszów. Their children under 14 had to stay in the orphanage. The next day, the inhabitants of Ghetto B were gathered in Plac Zgody. On the spot, about a thousand people were shot, including the elderly, the sick and doctors from the hospital, children and mothers who did not want to leave them. The rest were taken to KL Auschwitz. At the end of the action, SS men searched the abandoned buildings, murdering all those who tried to hide.

These March events are reminiscent of the installation in Plac Bohaterów Getta (former Zgody): the sculptures-chairs allude to the image of a deserted ghetto full of abandoned equipment and items. Every year, on the anniversary of the liquidation of the ghetto, a March of Remembrance is organized. Its participants walk from Plac Bohaterów Getta to the site of the former camp in Płaszów - a route that was a road to death for Krakow Jews.

The only remnants of the ghetto are two preserved fragments of walls: at ul. Lwowska and at the school at ul. Limanowskiego 60/62 (at the rear).