Keene to Krakow: A Walk Around the Krakow Ghetto

Independent Study- "Krakow Ghetto-Through the Eyes of a Tourist"

What do tourists see?

For me now, I feel more like a student observer than an actually tourist but of course you could still find me walking around with a map and book in hand as I made my way around Podgórze in the area of the ghetto.

Today, April 20th, 2012, was a beautiful spring day in Krakow, rounding off at a sweltering 60 degrees fahrenheit. Yesterday was the "March of the Living" so there are a lot of tour groups and young people throughout Kazimierz and Podgórze today. The other day, I went to the Jewish Community Center and the Galicia Jewish Museum for a field trip with one of my classes. At the JCC, we meet the director and got the low-down on what the JCC is all about. He was saying how here they try to be very contemporary and energetic about the future and living for today rather than through the past. One memorable quote from the director was "Poland is not only a cemetery." Right in the entryway to the JCC, there is a sign directed to the March of Living folks persuading them to "come inside and see some Jewish life." Here, being a Holocaust survivor is not the first thing you use to introduce yourself. They are really avid about living for today and having a thriving Jewish life once again in Krakow.

I started traveling by tram to get to Podgorze, but decided to take a pit stop in Kazimierz (for bagels at Bagel Mama of course). Besides having food direct my life, I thought that it would be appropriate for me to walk across the bridge over to Podgorze.

I decided to walk the path to the ghetto the way the Krakow Jews were forced to go, carrying their belongings into the new "Jewish residential area."

The Krakow Ghetto:

Plac Botaterow Getta (Plac Zgody)

This sqaure, which is the first thing you see as you enter Podgorze was the largest open space in the ghetto. For this reason, the inhabitants would often gather here in the early days to relax, socialize, and breathe fresh air. It was in this square however, that the Germans assembled thousands of people for deportation to the concentration camps. This site witnessed some of the most horrific scenes of the ghetto. Today, it is marked with a memorial consisting of 70 eerily empty metal chairs. These chairs represent that furniture and other remnants discarded by the deportees as they were forces onto trains being sent to the unknown. Deportation, Leave-Taking, and Remembrance of the Absent is what one experiences while walking through the empty rows of chairs.

Remnants of the Ghetto life and times have blended well back into Podgorze. For example, the building were the Headquarters of the Jewish Combat Organization was located right off the Plac Botaterow Getta now houses a pizzeria. The building is commemorated by a plague on the front of the building but it was easy to miss because of the red balloons that the pizza restaurant places strategically in the way, attempting to promote their restaurant. Luckily, I was able to spot it because wreaths of remembrance were left in front of the plaque.

As I started my self-guided walking tour, I noticed that I was along venturing through the side streets and definitely was taking the path less traveled on. Doing a self-guided tour was also difficult because of course most sites weren't marked or easily recognizable, I had to do a lot of retracing my steps. I got lost easily.

One of the most prominent places that I stumbled upon was the second part of the surviving Ghetto Wall, which is located behind a school, acting as a border for the playground area. I knew that this irony was only by chance, but i took it as a bold statement of remembrance, and found it very eery but also very serene and appropriate that a playground would be located next to the wall. Remember the Children. Children were among the first to be sent to the gas chambers and those who were chosen to fall into the hands of Dr. Mengele's experiments. As I entered the park, it was filled with a group of young people on a tour and families with children at play. Some were climbing on the wall like it was just part of the landscape. I decided to sit and take in this interesting contrast and bizarre scene. Like the chair memorial on Plac Bohaterow Getta, here I also got the sense of emptiness and absence. This parked should be overflowing with children. There was a huge age gap in Post-Holocaust families, and Jewish life struggled to get restored. As I though contemplating this, and basking in the sun, the park began to empty out. I soon realized that there were no more children at play. After getting goose-bumps on my arms from the silence, I decided to take my leave. The playing kids happy voices and laughter had drifted away and I was left with silence.