Old Jewish Tour
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Duration: 2,5 HOURS - Daily, departure in the morning.
Kazimierz was founded in 1335 by Kasimir the Great and it was an independent town with its own municipal charter and law until 1820. The Jewish quarter became home for all Jews persecuted from all ove the Europe. Kazimierz district was a centre of Jewish culture, until the Nazis moved the Jewish community from Kazimierz to the wartime ghetto located in the Podgórze district in March of 1941. This story was revealed to the world by the movie "Schindler's List" of Steven Spielberg. In our tour we will follow the Schindler's traces in turn :
- Szeroka Street - main street for Krakow Jews,
- Old Synagogue (XVc.) - the oldest Jewish sacral architecture in Poland, nowadays houses the Jewish Museum,
- Pharmacy Under the Eagles, museum which reconstruct the life in ghetto,
- Ghetto walls,
- Schindler factory at 4 Lipowa Street (currently Telpod electronics factory),
- Untersturmführer Amon Goeth's villa, the only one building of Płaszów Concentration Camp, all camp buildings were destroyed by the Nazis at the end of the war,
- Stone monument of ghetto heroes located on a large hill,
- The house of Oskar Schindler at 7 Straszewskiego Str.
The Jewish culture of the area is being revived, with lively art galleries, kosher restaurants and regular cultural events as an Annual Festival of Jewish Culture.
Old Synagogue (Alte Schul) is in the oldest synagogue preserved in Poland. The synagogue was built in the fifteenth century. Its architecture is modelled on the earlier, Gothic two-aisle synagogues of Worms, Regensburg, and Prague. In 1570 the synagogue was reconstructed by Matteo Gucci, who gave the building its Renaissance form, yet preserved its Gothic, two-aisle arrangement and reconstructed the cross-rib vaulting, resting on slender columns. In the latter half of the sixteenth century and in the earlier half of the seventeenth century the synagogue was enlarged by addition of a vestibule, two prayer rooms for women, and the house of the Jewish Commune Council. Together with the synagogue, the Council House constituted the religious and administrative centre of the Jewish congregation in the district of Kazimierz. In the years preceding and following the World War I, the synagogue was restored in stages, in the years 1904, 1913, and 1923 by Zygmunt Hendel. The reconstruction works conducted at that time improved its technical and functional state and enriched its architecture with historical, Neo-Renaissance detail harmonically complementing its previous historic form. In 1941, while the Nazis were creating the Krakow ghetto, the synagogue was incorporated into the German Treuhandstelle Office and used for storage. The equipment of the temple was destroyed or scattered. At the end of 1944 the roof collapsed, or may have been destroyed on purpose. In the years 1956 to 1959 the synagogue was reconstructed to be adapted for museum purposes. The Department of History and Culture of Jews was established in the Old Synagogue on the grounds of the agreement reached on 30th October, 1959 between the Jewish Commune of Krakow and the Museum of History of the City of Krakow.