Day 31 - September 27, 2017: Kraków and Area

Day 31 - Sept 27, 2017 - Kraków and Area

We started the day with a visit to the Kraków Rakowicki Cemetery in a Krakow. This site contains the CWGC section as well as a section for Polish, Russian and German soldiers killed in World War II. Many famous locals are buried in this cemetery as well including the parents of Pope John Paul II.

CWGC Kraków Rakawicki Cemetery

522 Casualties, 15 Canadians, 3 unidentified, 24 non-war casualties including two CWGC gardeners.

This cemetery is the largest of three CWGC cemeteries in Poland. It contains the graves of those who died while interred at the Lamsdorf Prisoner of War camp as well as airmen shutdown during Warsaw supply drops and bombings of factories, railways and other strategic targets.  

The graves of seven airmen is located in the cemetery - five with the Royal Canadian Air Force and two of the Royal Air Force. In August 1944, their Halifax bomber left Italy to drop supplies to the Polish Home Army fighting in the Warsaw uprising. Their plane was shot down and all seven airmen were killed. Their remains were buried in a single grave near the crash site then exhumed in 1946 to be reinterred in the CWGC in the Rakowicki Cemetery. In 2006 a team of archeologists attempted to recover the Halifax and in doing so uncovered additional human remains. These remains were tested in an International DNA testing lab in Thunder Bay, Ontario using DNA from the relatives of the airmen to confirm their identity. In a Rededication Ceremony in 2007 the identified remains were reinterred in the crew's existing graves. Check out the following link:

https://www.canada.ca/en/news/archive/2007/09/canadian-airmen-laid-rest-during-rededication-ceremony.html

Polish soldiers are buried in plots on the grounds of the cemetery. A monument to those soldiers overlooks the graves of the fallen ones.

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A mass grave for 2750 German soldiers exists on the grounds. A monument and plaques are placed to commemorate those interred.

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A monument and plaques have been erected in honour of the Soviet soldiers from WWII buried at the Kraków Rakowicki Cemetery.

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Schindler's Enamel Works Factory

We took tour of Schindler's factory. There is a great deal of information, video clips and exhibits that takes one from pre-war Kraków to the German invasion of Poland and ultimately German occupation. 

Sonderaktion 

"The Polish intelligentsia must be prevented from becoming the executive."

Adolf Hitler Berlin 17 October 1939.

On 6 November 1939 the academics were invited to the auditorium of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków to hear a lecture on the benefits of Naziism in Poland - how it would create a stronger economic 

It talks of the Polish underground that existed in Kraków. 

The museum examines the history of the Jewish community in Kazimierz - a neighbouring community of Kraków. Before the Second World War, the Jewish community numbered close to 70,000 with three synagogues in Kazimierz and area. Today it numbers 200. Those that survived the holocaust moved to Israel or to the U.S. A culture decimated...

The museum displays Amon Goeth his plans and follow through on the construction of the concentration camp at Plaszow.

..And that is as far as we got. It is an extremely comprehensive museum and it would take four or more hours to view it all - without the hoards of people. We could not believe how extremely busy it was. 

New Jewish Cemetery

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The New Jewish Cemetery in Kazimierz was founded in 1800. During the Nazi occupation the more valuable stonework was removed and sold to local masons while other headstones and slabs were used as construction material including building the supply road into the Plaszow Concentration camp. Amon Goeth believed the Jews should pay for their own executions. After the war a camp survivor gathered the stone from Plascow and arranged to have them transported back to the New Jewish cemetery. ***Picture*** The damaged headstones were incorporated into the construction of walls and a memorial to the Jews.

Ghetto Heroes Square

We went to Ghetto Heroes Square in Kazimierz. While held in the Jewish Quarters old Jewish men used to sit on their chairs in the square. Now the Square contains 70 chairs - each one representing 1000 Jews taken for the Jewish Quarter.

We poked our head into the Eagle Pharmacy the was shown in the movie "Schindler's List". Here the owner helped the Jews by relaying  messages between family members on either side of the wall as well as falsify documents****

While standing there we met a fellow named Woitek. He had an unusual accent (Australian to be exact). Woitek was born in Kraków and lived in Australia for 35 years. We hired him to tour us around in his golf cart and show us the sights of the Jewish Quarter. Woitek showed us the wall of the Jewish Quarter that still stands. HE showed us the three Jewish Synagogues that still exit and took us into Corpus Christi church in the Christian center. He too was a wealth of information and a pleasure to have as a guide. We learned a lot. In 1600 the level of the street increased by two meters to offset flooding in the area. Any church or building built before then is no below street level.

From there we toured the Old Synagogue that had been turned into a museum and then had a traditional Jewish meal and called it a day.