Jewish Krakow

Of course I knew there was a Jewish quarter in Krakow and there would be some influence but honestly, I had no idea how much "Jewishness" I would experience in Krakow. Two weekends ago, Stephan and I explored the Jewish quarter. We visited three synagogues, the cemetery, the museum, the streets. We walked through the former ghetto. We spotted the current Jewish community life, from a far, we saw one of the main Rabbis, the young women going to Shabbat services, we spotted the current Hillel and JCC.

At the second synagogue, I sat and cried. I had no idea why, but this one in particular called to me. Perhaps it reminded me in a small way of the first one we belonged to when I was a child in Greenport. Perhaps it felt the closest to how my great grandparents lived. (My dad's fathers side had Polish/Lithuania along with Ukrainian).

On Friday night, we ate at a restaurant that was the Mikveh at one point in the past. It is now a Jewish bookstore, restaurant and at night they perform Klezmer music. Eating very traditional food, while listening to Klezmer in a former Mikveh in a small setting of about 20-25 people, was not what I expected to do in Krakow, but it felt right. (We even crossed paths with a very well known Jewish American actor/playwright with his wife and child traveling through Poland in July).

Saturday night, we were able to see the outside of Schindler's factory (we got there too late to go inside). And then we returned to the Jewish quarter.

Sunday, we spent at Auschwitz and Birkenau. There are no words to describe it.

Here are some numbers that did hit me:

Jews made up 11% of the Polish population before the Holocaust

Approximately, 6 million Poles died in the war - of that 3 million were the Polish Jews or 90% of the population

around 1.1 million people were murdered in Auschwitz in less than 5 years ( the majority were Jewish, however one cannot forget that prisoners of war, Poles and others were murdered here as well)

Polish and Hungarian Jews were the largest groups murdered in Auschwitz

The photos below are all but Auschwitz/Birkenau.