How did the jewish quarter in Krakow survive WW2.?
Unlike Warsaw Kraków wasn’t completely destroyed during the war – according to Hitler’s order Warsaw was supposed to vanish from the face of Earth. Nevertheless, Kraków and the Jewish quarter were heavily affected by the war. To start with, many of the synagouges were desecrated – used for storing ammunition for example. The majority of the inhabitants of the quarter were killed during the war and many of those who survived immigrated to Israel. For many years after the war, the quarter was really neglected. Janusz Drzewecki, a journalist (I’m giving you a link to an article by him, but it’s in Polish, I’m afraid …) says that back in the 1970s the quarter was inhabited only by old, poor people and the synagouges and old Jewish shops and houses needed renovation – the place seemed to be semi-dead. It was only after Schindler’s List in the early 1990s that the quarter started to revive with the help of the Jewish Cultural Centre. May buildings were renovated and opened for tourism. The
