Krakow Day 2: Tour

Friday I woke up and grabbed some breakfast and then we met as a group to go begin our tour. We went to the oldest synagogue in Krakow (don't quote me on that) and looked around. It had some artifacts and stuff but to be honest I did not really know what I was looking at because I do not know much about Judaism.

The Synagogue. The guy in the blue was our tour guide for Krakow. The lady in the gray he is talking to was our program director, Dara

We ended up seeing some cool things in Krakow. This wall is a memorial around a Jewish cemetery behind a Synagogue. The wall is made out of head stones that were destroyed by the Nazis. 

We kept walking and we actually walked through where part of Schindler's list was filmed. The part were Jew's luggage is being thrown down from the balcony into the courtyard. 

Through the arch is the courtyard. You can kind of see the balcony

We also saw Schindler's Factory, which is now a museum, but not dedicated to Schindler. The museum is about Jews in Krakow. Some of us though about visiting it but we decided not to. 

The Factory

This is a memorial to the Jews of Krakow. The ghetto was liquidated in 1943 I think, and the empty chairs represent the Jews who were taken away and never came back

Right off of this courtyard with the memorial was a museum dedicated to a Polish doctor who actually owned a pharmacy within the Krakow ghetto, which usually the Germans did not allow. The museum was really cool. You could touch and play with just about everything, including the cash register from the 30's or 40's. You could play with the bottles of chemicals shown in the photo below. You could open them and smell them and hope they didn't kill you. It was great

The front of the Museum

The wall of the old Ghetto

We saw some more stuff but that was the most important and interesting things. After the tour we met with a woman who was declared a Righteous Among the Nations. Righteous Among the Nations are non-Jews officially recognized by the state of Israel for saving Jews during the Holocaust. This woman and her family hid a Jewish girl in their small apartment, right under the noses of the Germans and the other Polish family that they lived with. She was really nice and open to questions and it was fascinating to hear.

After that we attended a Shabbat service. It was a lot different than the Catholic Masses I attend but it was still cool to see to be cultured. It was in Hebrew and I had not idea what was happening but it was still interesting. After that we went to the local Jewish center there and we ate dinner. After this we went out to a bar in Krakow that was really cool. It was dark and candle lit and had a good atmosphere. When we left the bar we walked to the city center to check it out. It was really beautiful, especially at night. Here are some photos. 

A Castle

They had many horse drawn carriages

A Church

The Square

The main building of the square

After walking around a bit we want back to the Hostel to get some sleep, for tomorrow we were heading to Auschwitz. Read the next blog for that story.