Krakow: Day 2

This morning broke bright and lovely. At 9:30 Jakub (pronounced Yah-cub) met us here at the hotel to take us on a tour of Jewish Warsaw. Jakub is not himself Jewish but since university has specialized in tours related to the Jewish population as well as genealogical searches for the Polish ancestors of Jews living in other countries. Currently few Jewish people live in Krakow – only 150 are registered at the fairly new JCC (established with money from Prince Charles) but there is a demand for services of this kind from Jews of the diaspora. We went by taxi with him to an area south of the Old Town but north of the Vistula River, called Kazamir. In the middle ages this was a separate town from Krakow, a place where Jews and other foreigners were allowed to settle. Though many Western countries like France and England were then closed to Jews, Poland was receptive to their settlement. In the 14^th century, the king, Kazamir the Great, recognized that for Poland to develop it needed many more inhabitants. He sent out invitations to various groups, ensuring the accommodation of their people.  Jews settled in a defined area in the newly forming town that Kazamir named after himself.

Because Krakow did not suffer extensive damage during WWII that area is fairly extant. The General Government, Polish lands taken by German forces soon after their blitzkrieg invasion, was headed by Hans Frank. Frank made Krakow the capital of his bailiwick, and in doing so ensured that it was a pleasant place for  himself and his German associates. Much less so for the Poles and the Jews. Hitler’s plans for the Jews and the Poles (all Slavic peoples actually) had been clear from the beginning of his ascendency. The Jews would be driven from Europe in some fashion; it would become “Jew-free.” Slavs, whom he saw as a “race” inferior to Aryans would become slaves, working for the superior Germanic peoples.

The pre-war population of Krakow was less than 200,000 people, about 68,000 of whom were Jews. Restrictions against them were enforced immediately after the Sept 6/39 taking of Krakow: enforced labour was decreed for all Jews between 14-60; all were to wear the identifying Star of David; free movement in the city was curtailed; they could no longer use public parks or transportation; and, state pensions were taken from them. In April, 1940 a ghetto was formed on the right bank of the Vistula. Gentiles living there had 17 days to leave and  all but 16,000 Jews (those needed for Krakow’s economy) were compelled to relocate into a densely populated area with several families sharing an apartment, taking turns using the one kitchen and bathroom. Later a wall of 2-3 meters was built around the ghetto; its four gates were policed on the outside by German and Polish police and on the inside by Jewish police.

In June and in October, 1942 two groups totaling 11,000 Krakow Jews were sent to the death camp at Belzec. In December the ghetto was divided into sections A and B: Ghetto A was for working people and Ghetto B for all others. Meanwhile a forced labour camp for Jews was being constructed nearby at Plaszow. In February, 1943 the workers at the camp from the ghetto were barracked there, rather than returned at night to the ghetto and in March the order was given to liquidate the ghetto. This happened on the 13^th and 14^th of the month. About 6,000 workers from Ghetto A were sent to Plaszow; those living in Ghetto B were either murdered on the spot or deported to Auschwitz. The “liquidation” of the ghetto was conducted with incredible brutality: children and older people were taken into different streets and shot; their bodies were stripped and the naked corpses were loaded onto lorries for transport to Plaszow and mass burial. The ghetto area was cleaned up and resettled with other Poles. The central square of the former ghetto, the place where groups would be assembled for transportation is now a memorial. It is a simple, bare space with 68 fixed metal chairs symbolizing the over 68,000 Jews murdered by the Germans.

Jakub showed us around the area in Kazamir where the Jews had settled originally. After they were forcibly taken to the ghetto, others moved into the area. Over the war years and under the Soviets it fell into great disrepair. More recently it has become a tourist attraction and a centre for music and nightlife for Krakow’s large young population.

Oscar Schindler’s ceramic factory was located in the area close to the former ghetto. With the popularity of the movie about the rescue of his Jewish workers from certain death, international interest in the factory prompted the city to use the site for a permanent exhibit entitled Krakow Under Nazi Occupation: 1939-45. The exhibit was opened in 2010. Other than the factory gate and Schindler’s office little of the original site remains. It is a truly impressive exhibit, using multi-media effects, it conveys a harrowing sense of the horrors of the war for all Poles living in the city. The Germans killed three million Jews and three million non-Jewish Poles during their six year domination of the country. The museum was filled when we visited it; groups of young people as well as people like ourselves from outside the country walked through its corridors.

Under the Soviets the official line about the war was similar to that given to the East Germans: the bad fascists attacked you innocent Poles; we good communists rescued you. Now let’s get on with building a workers’ paradise. After 1989 and the end of the communist grip on Poland, Polish people have had to come to terms with aspects of their own history that they had preferred not to remember. After the war with the return of the Jewish survivors there had been pogroms; neighbours had murdered neighbours struggling over property rights, creating another level of insecurity for Jews and prompting their mass emigration to Palestine and to the west. Jakub said that there are on-going debates in the universities and among the younger generations about levels of culpability among their own people for actions taken against the Jews. There is a movement in Krakow to remember and to acknowledge the sufferings of the Jews during the war. Every year on the Sunday following the liquidation of the ghetto a March of Remembrance is organized. Beginning at the square in the former ghetto marchers walk silently from there to the former concentration camp in Plaszow.

Tomorrow we will visit Auschwitz/Birkenau.