Krakow’s ghetto opened 70 years ago today.

Seventy years ago today, the occupying Nazi German regime opened a ghetto in Krakow for Poles of Jewish descent. It was one of the five largest such ghettos in the so-called General-Government region of the Third Reich.

By 3 March 1941, over 36,000 Cracovian Jews had already been forcibly resettled outside the city. Now a second wave was enacted, enclosing the remaining Jews in a walled section of the city’s Podgorze district, south of the River Vistula.

By October 1941, the Ghetto housed about 16,000 people. They were enclosed in an area that prior to the war had accommodated 4,000. Apartments typically housed four families together.

Evacuations of the ghetto to forced labour camps began in May 1942, as recorded in the memoir of Catholic pharmacy owner Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who was later decorated by the State of Israel.

Another prominent figure who aided the Jewish community was Oskar Schindler, who famously used the free labour of Jews at his enamel factory, a short walk from the ghetto. He succeeded in saving the lives of over 1,000 Cracovian Jews.

65,000 Jews from the city and its environs perished during the war. Approximately ten percent of the pre-1939 population survived. Amongst those who escaped the ghetto was the young Roman Polanski, who went on to become one of Poland’s most renowned film directors.

In the summer os 2010, the city of Krakow opened a major museum chronicling the occupation in the former Schindler Factory. A march of remembrance also takes place every year, marking the bloody liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943.

Remembering Oskar Schindler

KRAKOW TOURS – On the day that the world is remembering and reminiscing about John Lennon (today would have been  his 70th birthday), another internationally famous figure should be remembered also.

On this day (9th October) in 1974 Oskar Schindler died.

Oskar Schindler rose to the highest level of humanity, walked through the bloody mud of the Holocaust without soiling his soul, his compassion, his respect for human life -  and gave his Jews a second chance at life. He miraculously managed to do it and pulled it off by using the very same talents that made him a war profiteer – his flair for presentation, bribery, and grand gestures.

In those years, millions of Jews died in the Nazi death camps like Auschwitz, but Schindler’s Jews miraculously survived.

To more than 1200 Jews Oscar Schindler was all that stood between them and death at the hands of the Nazis. A man full of flaws like the rest of us – the unlikeliest of all role models who started by earning millions as a war profiteer and ended by spending his last pfennig and risking his life to save his Jews. An ordinary man who even in the worst of circumstances did extraordinary things, matched by no one. He remained true to his Jews, the workers he referred to as my children. In the shadow of Auschwitz he kept the SS out and everyone alive.

Oskar Schindler and his wife Emilie Schindler were inspiring evidence of courage and human decency during the Holocaust. Emilie was not only a strong woman working alongside her husband but a heroine in her own right. She worked indefatigably to save the Schindler-Jews – a story to bear witness to goodness, love and compassion.

Today there are more than 7,000 descendants of the Schindler-Jews living in US and Europe, many in Israel. Before the Second World War, the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. Today there are between 3,000 and 4,000 left.

Oskar Schindler spent millions to protect and save his Jews, everything he possessed. He died penniless. But he earned the everlasting gratitude of the Schindler-Jews. Today his name is known as a household word for courage in a world of brutality – a hero who saved hundreds of Jews from Hitler’s gas chambers.

Schindler died in Hildesheim in Germany October 9, 1974. He wanted to be buried in Jerusalem. As he said: My children are here ..

Roman Polanski, escapee from the Krakow Ghetto.

KRAKOW TOURS – Here is an in depth review of the life and career of Roman Polanski, a survivor of the Krakow Ghetto during the nazi occupation of 1939-44. He lost close family in the Auschwitz and Birkenhau death camps, but managed to forge himself a remarkable but controversial life and career.

Reflecting on the career of filmmaker Roman Polanski Few filmmakers have actually lived lives of controversy and drama that threaten to eclipse what they have depicted on screen, as has Roman Polanski. The infamous filmmaker has experienced incredible extremes of success and tragedy in his life. He has made several highly acclaimed films including the … Read More

via Cinema Autopsy

Roman Polanski Free After Switzerland Rejects Extradition

KRAKOW TOURS – One of Krakow’s most famous sons (well sort of), is now a free man.

Find out more about Polanski and his incredible links to the Krakow Ghetto when you visit Poland with Krakow Tours.

Roman Polanski Free After Switzerland Rejects Extradition Oscar-winning director will not be sent to U.S. for sentencing in 1977 child sex case.

By Gil Kaufman

The decades-long legal saga of Oscar-winning filmmaker Roman Polanski took another twist on Monday (July 12), when Switzerland’s Ministry of Justice announced that it would not extradite the director of “The Pianist” to the U.S. to fa … Read More

via Hannab11′s Blog

Krakow Ghetto opened 69 years ago this week

IN SCHINDLERS STEPS - This day in history – 1941 - The beginning of the Jewish ghetto in Krakow

One of the five main ghettos created by Nazi Germany during their occupation of Poland in WWII. Before the war, the city was an influential cultural centre for the 60,000 – 80,000 Jews that resided there.