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Guided tours Cracow with Christian Vogt

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Remuh Synagogue

Cracow Ghetto - Jewish Ghetto

In 1941 the Cracow Ghetto was set up in the Podgorze district on the other Vistula bank by the Germans, who wanted to annihilate the entire history of Jewish Kazimierz. The Ghetto was surrounded by a high wall in the shape of Jewish tombstones. Under pain of death it was forbidden to leave the "Jewish Residential District". On these days 15 thousand Jews from Kazimierz were brought there, immediately suffering from overpopulation. Before the creation of the Ghetto in this 320 residential buildings lived only 3 thousand persons. So now 7 persons had to share a room. Hunger was the biggest problem, for the daily food ration in the Ghetto consisted only of potato soup with bread.

Zgoda Square - Ghetto Heroes Square

One of four guarded entrances to the Ghetto was situated on the Zgoda Square (today's Ghetto Heroes Square). On this square all executions and deportations to surrounding concentration camps toke place. Finally in 1943 the Cracow Ghetto was liquidated. The Jews able to work were transported to the Cracow-Plaszow labor camp, the unfit for work - older persons, mothers and children - were shot by the Nazis in the Ghetto. There is an eyewitness of the Ghetto liquidation, the Polish pharmacist Tadeusz Pankiewicz.

Eagles Pharmacy - Tadeusz Pankiewicz

The Pharmacist Tadeusz Pankiewicz owned the Eagle Pharmacy which by accident was situated in the Ghetto. He was the only Polish person who could stay there. The Eagles Pharmacy of Pankiewicz became a place where the Jews got medication and information from outside the Ghetto. It was a shelter to forget the horrible conditions for a few minuts. There Tadeusz Pankiewicz hid small Jewish children when the Nazis searched them. He wrote a book about his time in the Cracow Ghetto: "The Cracow Ghetto Pharmacy" For his deeds he was awarded as a Righteous Among the Nations.

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