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Plac Bohaterow Getta

rated 80%
2 reviews

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Krakow's Podgorze district was the site of the former Jewish Ghetto, and while part of the ghetto wall still remains, until December 2005 there was no monument commemorating the heroes and victims of the ghetto. This memorial was designed by Krakow architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, and features 33 large illuminated chairs in the square and 37 smaller chairs standing on the edge of the square and at the tram stops. The chairs represent the furniture and other remnants that were discarded on that very spot by the ghetto's Jews as they were herded into the trains that would often take them to their deaths in Auschwitz and other concentration camps.

Plac Bohaterow Getta

Yes a very moving square and across at the other end is the Apteka Pod Orlem (the Chemist under the Eagle)which was the only pharmacy allowed in the ghetto and I beleive funded by Roman Polanski to be renovated and turned into a museum.

Also well worth a visit and often ignored (even this article ignores it) is the concentration camp at Plaszow (tram stop Dworcowa tram numbers 3, 6, 13, 24, 29 and a climb the up the hill to ul Jerozolimska).There is very little here but the former ‘villa’ of the Camp Commandant, stands at 22 Heltmana street. The grey building at 3 Jerozolimska once served as a barracks housing the camp’s detachment of the SS troops while its basement contained a torture chamber.
There are also few monuments towards the other end but the whole area is extremely eerie and very moving. The last inmates were transported to Auschwitz in 1945.

reviewed by Ray Wentland from United Kingdom on Jan.16.2009

We met here for the March of Remembrance. The whole square has a haunting feel.

reviewed by Jen from United States on Mar.17.2008