Krakow

Today we visited some of the Jewish history of Krakow, a history that goes back to the ninth century.

We visited sites of an extensive Jewish culture that existed prior to WWII and we saw locations that suggest the city and the country are making genuine efforts to reconnect with Judaism today.

The Oskar Schindler factory has been given a facelift to encourage tourism and a memorial to the victims of the Holocaust has been constructed at the place where Jews were gathered in the Krakow ghetto for deportation. Today we toured streets where Schindler's List was filmed.

A pharmacy in the ghetto, owned and operated by a non-Jewish Pole, Taduusz Pankiewicz became a of center of resistance during the war and has now become a small museum and commemorative site. Pankiewicz is recognized on the Avenue of the Righteous Among Nations at Yad Vashem. The number of Poles among the rescuers there is the greatest of any country.

Krakow is a city of around 750, 000, Poland's second largest. The old city remains alive with business, commerce, and entertainment activity.

Tomorrow we travel to Kielce, site of a pogrom against around 200 Holocaust survivor Jews that took place a year after the end of WWII. Forty-two were killed and many Jews were convinced that a return to their homes in Poland after the war was not possible. We move then to Lodz, where we will spend Wednesday and Thursday nights.