Kraków Ghetto

Visited what`s left of the Jewish quarter in the suburb of Kazimierz. There are not many Jews left in Krakow now, the Nazis saw to that. Before the war there was a population of around 65,000 Jews in the city, now there are around 200. The synagogues have become museums and monuments to man`s inhumanity to man. The Jews were first herded into the ghetto just south of the river, in Podgorze. The town square is full of empty chairs, representing the furniture abandoned by families as they were ripped apart and packed onto trains heading for the death camps. Some parts of the Ghetto wall still exist. A tiny area, packed with humanity and cut off from the Aryan world outside. There were heroes who did what they could to ease the suffering in that violent world. The Pharmacy Under the Eagle was run by a polish chemist throughout the war, who refused to move and provided much needed help to the occupants of the Ghetto. And just outside the walls the enamelware factory run by one Oscar Schindler still stands.
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