WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
Posted on 12/18/2004 8:29:07 PM PST by anonymoussierra
There’s much more to Krakow’s Jewish history than is depicted in Holocaust films. Indeed, when the city’s Tempel Synagogue was being built between 1860 and 1862, Jewish life already had been thriving here for over 550 years. A ceremony and concert this week in the synagogue, which was restored in 2000, marked the 700th anniversary of Jewish life in Krakow. The event drew local and national dignitaries who delivered speeches on the historical and cultural significance of Jewish life in Krakow.
“Jews helped build this town,” said Mayor Jacek Majchrowski. “They were doctors, teachers, and today with Jews and Poles working together we will ensure that the Holocaust will never happen in this world again.”
The exact year of the anniversary was determined by the first mention of Jewish street names in the city’s archival records in 1304.
Krakow’s Jewish district used to be in the center of town near the main market square, near what are today Saint Anne Street and the main buildings of Jagiellonian University.
In 1495, Jews were effectively expelled from that area and moved to Kazimierz, which was separated from the rest of Krakow by the Wisla River.
Jewish life flourished for hundreds of years in Kazimierz and in the nearby district of Podgorze, until the Nazis established a ghetto in Podgorze in 1940.
Jews from all over the city were forced to give up their homes and move into the ghetto. It was liquidated in March 1943, and those who had survived the harsh ghetto life were marched to the nearby Plaszow labor camp, or deported to the Belzec death camp in eastern Poland.
Kazimierz lay fallow for some 50 years, a neighborhood of low-income housing and high crime. After the fall of Communism in 1989 and the success of Stephen Spielberg’s Holocaust film, “Schindler’s List,” in 1993, Kazimierz was revitalized: Synagogues were restored and Jewish-style restaurants opened.
Today, the area is one of the largest tourist sites in Poland, attracting Jewish and non-Jewish visitors from all over the world to glimpse the centuries-old history.
Poland’s new chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, addressed this week’s gathering.
“We thank God for the past 700 years, and for the next,” he said.
Schudrich followed his remarks with a Hebrew prayer.
Franciszek Cardinal Macharski, archbishop of Krakow and head of the province of Malopolska, also attended and spoke. The ceremony was followed by a concert showcasing Jewish cultural life, both old and new.
The Klezmer band Kroke — Yiddish for Krakow — performed new interpretations of Klezmer classics.
They were followed by Leopold Kozlowski, known as the last Klezmer of Galicia, who conducted a group of musicians and vocalists singing in Polish and in Yiddish. Their show energized the audience of Holocaust survivors from Krakow and elsewhere in Poland, other local Krakowians and young Jews.
At a reception following the concert, the complicated state of Jewish life in Poland today was on the minds of many guests.
Daniel Bertram survived the war in the Soviet state of Georgia, and made his way back to his hometown of Krakow after the war ended.
“When I returned my whole family was gone, 18 people murdered,” he said. Bertram found his apartment had been taken over, and when he tried to get a passport out of Poland he was denied.
Today Bertram remains in Krakow, near where his great-grandfather lived, and prays at the Orthodox Remuh synagogue. Though the war changed everything, Krakow is still his home, he said.
“I’m a native,” he said, “I come from an old Krakow family.”
It’s difficult to count the number of Jews in Poland today because of the displacement of Jews during World War II and the subsequent Communist regime, but Schudrich estimated the country that was once home to 3.5 million Jews now has upward of 20,000. That number is growing, he said.
Ola Wilczura, head of the Krakow branch of the Polish Union of Jewish Students, was skeptical about the future of Jewish life in Poland. “Most Krakowian Jews go abroad to Israel or the U.S.,” she said.
Most Poles with Jewish roots come from intermarried families — a grandmother was hidden or converted, for example, or a father negated his Judaism during the Communist era.
For these Poles, returning to Judaism is a complex process. They can be intimidated by the Orthodoxy of the official Jewish community in Poland, and many seek alternatives that will allow them to embrace their Jewish roots without a total shift in character.
Wilczura noted that in Krakow, “the community doesn’t have programs for young people that will accept Polish and Jewish roots. We need education, and it’s not so easy.”
In the midst of the celebration, Wilczura considered the present difficulties in Polish Jewish life. Asked if there would be an 800th anniversary of Jewish life in Krakow, she shook her head uncertainly.
Courtesy of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
http://www.jta.org
Good morning Poland
WARNING: This is a high volume ping list
"Only a few European cities have such a distinct medieval architectural layout as Krakow has. When we look down the city`s roofs we will see an exceptional checked pattern of streets, which are surrounded by fragments of the surviving city walls. This view evokes the exciting picture of a medieval fortified town surrounded by city walls. The walls were strengthened with 47 towers and had a total length of 3 km. Eight main gates led to the town. Only one of them has survived. The walls not only safeguarded the citizens but also the priceless pearls of architecture inside. The medieval fortification system survived until the 19th century. The local authorities decided to demolish the walls and replace them with a strip of green land around the city called the "Planty". Now it forms an oval city park, a rarity in the world, which extends from the Royal Castle to the Royal Castle." 
Wawel Castle, Krakow
Kraków, 1935. Chaja Tendler from Skala (on the right) with her friends.
Liquidation of the ghetto in Krakow, Poland, with belongingsof deported Jews strewn about the streets, March 1943.
A Jewish woman and her two young children await deportation. What was their 'crime'? What kind of hate could produce the Germans & their Nazi allies to act like barbarians to even the very old & very young?
1936 street scene in Kazimierz
Chana Gross, née Perlberger, born 1897 in Wieliczka."»After she got married, Chana lived in Krakow. She was very intelligent and liked by the goyim for her tact in her personal life. She was the mother of two sons. On December 11, 1942 in Wieliczka, she and her mother were executed by firing squad«. That is all my aunt wrote when she sent me this photograph to pass along to you. She died not long thereafter. The picture of her friend Chana hung in the dining room over the cupboard in a beautiful gilded frame. My aunt was afraid that, after she died, the picture would be thrown out in the trash. I am curious as to whether the descendants of this beautiful woman are to be found." Maria Czuk, Zamosc
Names unknown. The picture was probably taken by a German soldier
The Nazi flag is raised over the Krakow castle. Krakow, Poland, 1939
Prisoners receive meager food allocations at the Plaszow camp. Krakow, Poland, 1943 or 1944
Jews in the Krakow ghetto unload furniture, to be used as kindling, next to a pile of coal. Krakow, Poland, ca. 1941
Szeroka Street in Kazimierz, the old Jewish quarter of Krakow
Jews wearing armbands are forced to shovel snow from the pavement in Krakow.
A German policeman checks the identification papers of Jews in the Krakow ghetto.
Jews forced to move their belongings into the Krakow ghetto in horse-drawn wagons.
Jews march through Krakow to Podgorze Ghetto by German SS troops
Original gate into Krakow ghetto in 1940
Krakow. The Kazimierz district, Krakowska Street. March 1941. Jews being taken to the ghetto in Podgórze district.
The evil of Nazism: SS soldiers laughing at Jews who are forced to work
SS Nazi guard with his dog at the Plaszow concentration camp.
Jewish prisoners at forced labor in Plaszow.
Three elderly Jews walk arm-in-arm through the streets of Krakow during the final liquidation action of the ghetto. Photo credit: Instytut Pamieci Narodowej/Institute of National Memory
German police or soldiers check the identification papers of a Jew in the streets of Krakow. Date: 1940 Locale: Krakow, Poland Credit: Archiwum Panstwowe w
Podgorze Ghetto
After the Wannsee conference on Jan. 20, 1942, at which the "The Final Solution to the Jewish Question" was planned, the Nazis began the "transportation to the east" of 11,000 Jews from the Podgorze Ghetto to the extermination camp at Belzec on the eastern border of German-occupied Poland. There were two separate actions in June 1942 and October 1942 when Jews from the Podgorze Ghetto were rounded up and sent to the Belzec extermination camp. The movie Schindler's List combines these actions and the final liquidation of the Ghetto in 1943 into one scene.
Brutal savages: German SS soldier kicks a Jew who is being forced onto a truck, just for laughs
Goeth at Plaszow ready to kill his next Jewish victim...
Amon Goeth was arrested in the autumn of 1944 by the Gestapo, not for butchering Jews butin connection with an investigation of corruption and black market activities in the camps, the same investigation that brought about the execution of Karl Koch and Hermann Florstedt. Goeth was also suspected of embezzlement, but before he could be put on trial the war ended.
He was recuperating in an SS-sanitarium in Bad Tolz when he was arrested by Patton's troops in February 1945. The Americans turned him over to the Poles.
Amon Goeth (front left), commandant of the Plaszow camp, was sentenced to death at his postwar trial on war crimes charges in Krakow, Poland, 1946
Amon Goeth, a fanatical, brutal Nazi was the SS killer placed in charge of 'liquidating' Podgorze Ghetto. This photo was taken at his war crimes trial
Amon Goeth leaves courthouse after being sentenced to death
Amon Goeth was found guilty on all counts. He was hanged for his war crimes in Krakow on September 13, 1946, exactly two years to the day after he was arrested by the SS for stealing from the Plaszow camp. His body was cremated and his ashes were thrown into the Weichsel river. His name will forever be associated with the total disregard for human life, as exemplified by the scenes in Schindler's List when Goeth shoots Jewish prisoners at random from the balcony of his home.
One of the scenes in the movie Schindler's List shows Oskar Schindler as he watches the liquidation of the Podgorze Ghetto.
The photograph below shows the view looking westward towards Podgorze, as seen by Oskar Schindler as he rode his horse in Bednarskiego Park on a hill that extends from Limanowskiego Street. In the picture, the street on which the two cars are driving is Krakusa Street where Genia, the little girl in the red coat, was walking in the Schindler's List story. The movie scene was shot on this street, exactly where it happened. Krakusa street is one block west of the Plac Zgody, where the Pharmacy Museum is located. The park is located between the former Podgorze Ghetto and the Plaszow district and is very close to Oskar Schindler's factory.
Red car on Krakusa St. where Schindler saw the girl in a red coat
The photo below shows the bridal path along the edge of the hill overlooking Krakusa Street, from where Schindler looked down from his horse and saw 7,000 Jews being marched out of the Podgorze Ghetto for transporation to concentration camps, according to the novel, Schindler's List. The path is now overgrown with trees.
Path where Schindler rode his horse as it looks today
Oskar Schindler at his horse "Emalia."
Do you have a picture of this grinning sociopathic monster hanging on the gallows after he's sent to collect his 72 blond virgins in Valhalla?
Thank you that is good photograph :}}}
Never again I want evil hapen to good persons Izrael. Today new devil evil atack Izrael persons again. Hitler that devil evil lucifer Stalin is life - Middle Eeast. G-D help Izrael and good persons Thank you
I did not see one in the research, but recall that evil bastard is roasting with Arafat & Hitler coupled with the rest of the butchers from the Shoah. In the end, monsters such as this animal always pay the highest price!
Thank you. If you have any additional ones, please add them.
What the mullahs, the Assad regimé, Hizballah & all the rest of the 7th century Islamic barbarians have dished out to others, is about to be repaid .....in full!
Bush is going to become kosher yet ..lolol
Jews march through Krakow to Podgorze Ghetto 
Polska 1918-39
http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/wy_in_opera_skrzypek_na_dachu_opera_dolnoslaska
THE FIDDLER ON THE ROOF" - A NEW YEAR'S EVE EXTRAVAGANZA
Wroclaw, Hala Ludowa, December 31, 2004, at 7 p.m.
The Lower Silesian Opera in Wroclaw is currently preparing its New Year's Eve production of SKRZYPEK NA DACHU / THE FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, featuring the music of Jerry Bock and words by Joseph Stein. Marek Weiss-Grzesinki is handling the direction and staging, with Ryszard Kaja acting as scenery designer and Emil Wesolowski devising the choreography. Ewa Michnik is the production's musical director.
THE FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is one of the most famous and original works of its genre. Since its unprecedented success in 1964 on Broadway (where the show set new performance and attendance records when it was presented day after day for ten years), the musical has been produced on multitudes of stages around the world. It continues to fascinate, move and excite audiences to this day. THE FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is fascinating in its exploration of Jewish life and customs, moving in its portrayal of human experience and of its protagonists' struggle with fate, and exciting for its artistic qualities (music, choreography and drama) and its universal, humanist message. The Lower Silesian Opera will offer additional performances of its production on January 7th, 8t and 9th of 2005.
Opera Dolnoslaska / The Lower Silesian Opera in Wroclaw
ul. Swidnicka 35, 50-066 Wroclaw
tel. (+48 71) 344 16 03
fax (+48 71) 344 78 12
www.opera.wroclaw.pl
Thank you be strong America good country "What the mullahs, the Assad regimé, Hizballah & all the rest of the 7th century Islamic barbarians have dished out to others, is about to be repaid .....in full!"Evil is evil good is good good is strong evil is not strong G-D is strong! G-D is good! I read many persons do not know WWII well evil SS Gestapo, evil comunist evil NKWD/KGB. You know America friend many mother, father, children, many smart persons not life think what good that persons bring for world. Today America strong country, Izrael, Poland itp.. atack evil persons. atack persons that life in evil. Thank you
I read Izajasz. That is English wersja
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=29&chapter=14&version=31
"Isaiah 14
1 The LORD will have compassion on Jacob;
once again he will choose Israel
and will settle them in their own land.
Aliens will join them
and unite with the house of Jacob.
2 Nations will take them
and bring them to their own place.
And the house of Israel will possess the nations
as menservants and maidservants in the LORD's land.
They will make captives of their captors
and rule over their oppressors.
3 On the day the LORD gives you relief from suffering and turmoil and cruel bondage, 4 you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon:
How the oppressor has come to an end!
How his fury [a] has ended!
5 The LORD has broken the rod of the wicked,
the scepter of the rulers,
6 which in anger struck down peoples
with unceasing blows,
and in fury subdued nations
with relentless aggression.
7 All the lands are at rest and at peace;
they break into singing.
8 Even the pine trees and the cedars of Lebanon
exult over you and say,
"Now that you have been laid low,
no woodsman comes to cut us down."
9 The grave [b] below is all astir
to meet you at your coming;
it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you-
all those who were leaders in the world;
it makes them rise from their thrones-
all those who were kings over the nations.
10 They will all respond,
they will say to you,
"You also have become weak, as we are;
you have become like us."
11 All your pomp has been brought down to the grave,
along with the noise of your harps;
maggots are spread out beneath you
and worms cover you.
12 How you have fallen from heaven,
O morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth,
you who once laid low the nations!
13 You said in your heart,
"I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne
above the stars of God;
I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. [c]
14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High."
15 But you are brought down to the grave,
to the depths of the pit.
16 Those who see you stare at you,
they ponder your fate:
"Is this the man who shook the earth
and made kingdoms tremble,
17 the man who made the world a desert,
who overthrew its cities
and would not let his captives go home?"
18 All the kings of the nations lie in state,
each in his own tomb.
19 But you are cast out of your tomb
like a rejected branch;
you are covered with the slain,
with those pierced by the sword,
those who descend to the stones of the pit.
Like a corpse trampled underfoot,
20 you will not join them in burial,
for you have destroyed your land
and killed your people.
The offspring of the wicked
will never be mentioned again.
21 Prepare a place to slaughter his sons
for the sins of their forefathers;
they are not to rise to inherit the land
and cover the earth with their cities.
22 "I will rise up against them,"
declares the LORD Almighty.
"I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors,
her offspring and descendants,"
declares the LORD .
23 "I will turn her into a place for owls
and into swampland;
I will sweep her with the broom of destruction,"
declares the LORD Almighty.
A Prophecy Against Assyria
24 The LORD Almighty has sworn,
"Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
and as I have purposed, so it will stand.
25 I will crush the Assyrian in my land;
on my mountains I will trample him down.
His yoke will be taken from my people,
and his burden removed from their shoulders."
26 This is the plan determined for the whole world;
this is the hand stretched out over all nations.
27 For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him?
His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?
A Prophecy Against the Philistines
28 This oracle came in the year King Ahaz died:
29 Do not rejoice, all you Philistines,
that the rod that struck you is broken;
from the root of that snake will spring up a viper,
its fruit will be a darting, venomous serpent.
30 The poorest of the poor will find pasture,
and the needy will lie down in safety.
But your root I will destroy by famine;
it will slay your survivors.
31 Wail, O gate! Howl, O city!
Melt away, all you Philistines!
A cloud of smoke comes from the north,
and there is not a straggler in its ranks.
32 What answer shall be given
to the envoys of that nation?
"The LORD has established Zion,
and in her his afflicted people will find refuge."
Thanks for posting that gteat map & additional photos.
Thank you :}}}}}
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.