Krakow Kazimierz Jewish District - PRIVATE (4h)

Kazmierz The Former Jewish District

Another historical municipality in the outskirts of Krakow, Kazimierz, is now one of the city's most attractive districts. Dotted with old buildings which give a special ambience to the area, Kazimierz was home to the larger part of the Jewish population of Krakow tilll 1939. Here, we find the famous Remuh Synagogue and the Alte Schule,Poland's oldest synagogue, today an important museum of the district. Worth a visit is also the Temple founded by the local Association of Progressive Jews and the Wolf Popper synagogue.

The factory at Lipowa street was launched two years before the Second World War. In the autumn of 1939 it was confiscated from three Jewish owners and taken over by a Sudeten German, Oskar Schindler (1908–74), a member of the NDSAP and most probably a collaborator of the Abwehr. Thanks to his extensive network of connections, the businessman won plenty of commissions, both civilian (pots, spoons, et cetera) and military (including mess kits, and later also ammunition shells) for his Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik commonly known as Emalia, which earned him a fair revenue. Schindler employed Jews initially for economic reasons as they provided a cheap labour force. Most probably the establishment of the ghetto and the subsequent brutal deportations made the businessman aware that as a director of a prospering factory, he had an opportunity to help these people.

Szeroka Street

Rising up around it was a plethora of synagogues, Jewish schools, academies, and institutions. For centuries, it was one of the most important Jewish cultural and spiritual centres in Europe. This is where the famous scholar and rector of the Talmudic Academy, Moses Isserles known as Remuh, lived in the 16th century. Jews from all over the world come on pilgrimages to his grave, a site that abounds in legends. In the following century, the learned Rabbi Natan Spira studied the Kabbalah in the attic of the synagogue at 22 Szeroka Street by a small candle. The candle burnt out in 1633 and the famous Kabbalist died, of exhaustion as rumour had it.