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Play this music "Shifrele's Portrait" |
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The Nazi flag is raised over the Krakow castle. Krakow, Poland, 1939. See more photographs |
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KRAKOW (CRACOW) |
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The city of Krakow (Cracow) is in southern Poland. Before 1918, it was the seat of the Austrian province of Galicia. In 1939 60,000 Jews resided in Krakow, almost one-quarter of a total population of about 250,000. The German army occupied Krakow in the first week of September 1939. Persecution of the Jews began immediately and intensified after the Germans declared Krakow the capital of the Generalgouvernement, that area of Poland which Germany did not annex directly to its eastern provinces. In the city, Wawel Castle became the residence of Nazi lawyer Hans Frank, who had been appointed Governor General of Poland. Montelupich prison became a German Security Police prison. In 1942, the Plaszow camp was established in the south of the city as a forced-labor camp for the Jews of Krakow and its environs. In 1944, Plaszow became a concentration camp. |
In May 1940, the Germans began to expel Jews from Krakow to the neighboring countryside. By March 1941, the majority of Jews had been evicted. Only about 15,000 remained in Krakow. In early March 1941, the Germans ordered the establishment of a ghetto, to be situated in Podgorze in the south of Krakow rather than in Kazimierz, the traditional Jewish quarter of the city. The Germans concentrated the remaining Jews of Krakow and thousands of Jews from other towns in the ghetto. Almost 20,000 Jews were confined in the ghetto, which was enclosed by barbed-wire fences and, in places, by a stone wall. Streetcars traveled through the ghetto but made no stops within its boundary. The Germans established several factories inside the ghetto, among them the Optima and the Madritsch factories, where Jews were used for forced labor. Several hundred Jews were also employed in factories and forced-labor projects outside the ghetto. |
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See artifact Doll from the Krakow ghetto |
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In March 1942, the Germans arrested about 50 intellectuals in the ghetto and deported them to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp. In the second half of 1942, the Germans deported about 13,000 people from the ghetto. During the deportations, Plac Zgody and the Optima factory were the major assembly points. Most of the deportees were sent to the Belzec extermination camp; some were sent to Auschwitz, which was only 40 miles from Krakow. Hundreds of people were shot in the ghetto during the deportations. |
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In March 1943, the Germans destroyed the Krakow ghetto. More than 2,000 people were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and killed. The rest of the ghetto population was deported to the nearby Plaszow camp. RESISTANCE IN THE KRAKOW GHETTO Krakow ghetto fighters also attempted to join partisan groups active in the Krakow region. In successive skirmishes with the Germans, the Jewish underground fighters suffered heavy losses. In the fall of 1944 the remnants of the resistance escaped from Poland, crossing into neighboring Slovakia and then into Hungary, where they joined with Jewish resistance groups in Budapest. Krakow remained the administrative seat of the Generalgouvernement until the Germans evacuated the city in January 1945. Soviet forces liberated Krakow that month. |
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Museum
