Kraków under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945

Difficult decision

Like most people visiting Kraków, I had planned to visit the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum to pay my respects to all those lives cruelly lost there and around the world under the Nazi Occupation during World War Two. When Nick and I realised that doing so would virtually take a whole day out of our limited time in Kraków, we made the hard decision not to go. It was honestly a really hard decision for me. Instead, though, we decided to visit the Oskar Schindler Enamel Factory Museum. It was a good decision.

Like so many people who have seen the film Schindler’s List, I have always been inspired to think how one man was able to save so many – over 1000 – against the odds. Visiting the museum was one of the highlights of my short trip to Kraków and I urge anyone who has the chance to go there. It was an unforgettable experience and one that truly touched my heart.

Feel the reality

As the museum’s website explains, you will experience a story about Kraków and its inhabitants, both Polish and Jewish, during World War Two. It is also a story about Nazi Germans – the occupiers who arrived there on 6 September 1939, “brutally disrupting Kraków’s centuries-long history of Polish-Jewish relations.”  The character of Oskar Schindler and the life stories of the Kraków Jews he saved are presented in the exhibition as part of the city’s complex wartime history.

Oskar Schindler’s “heroic attitude” is presented in close-up in his former office – the historic room located in the factory’s administrative building has been preserved intact throughout the years. The dominant feature here is the symbolic “Survivors’ Ark” made of thousands of enamelled pots, similar to those manufactured by Schindler’s employees during the war.

Unique experience

The narrative created by the musuem’s team is astounding. It combines documentary photographs, eyewitness accounts, film documentaries and multimedia presentations. “All of these elements are put together to make a vivid, chronological vision of the city’s history. The exhibition presents the tragedy of the war both in the individual, and  in the collective dimension, but it also portrays everyday life in the Nazi-occupied Kraków as it is immortalised in ordinary objects, photographs, newspapers, personal and official documents.”

You are presented with Kraków’s history in an almost tangible way, getting a personal experience of the past, and feeling the dramatic emotions shared by the city’s wartime residents.

incredible design

I’ll be honest, I did not take too many photos – I was just caught up in really experiencing the exhibit. It is designed so the visitor voyeuristically wanders through the city.

You walk down the cobbled streets, pop in at a photographer’s shop, peep into an authentic stereoscope which used to belong to a pre-war studio on Szczepańska St, board a tram to watch a documentary portraying the everyday life of the city which is screened on the tram’s windows, walk through the narrow, labyrinthine streets of the Ghetto to visit a typical Jewish apartment, and then move to the Płaszów camp, together with the Ghetto residents.

Looking though the windows of a hairdresser’s salon you watch the Polish underground’s attempt on the life of Wilhelm Koppe. A moment later, looking though the window of a gloomy basement, you witnesse a street round-up, and finally, trapped in the fortified city, you wait for the Red Army to arrive.

I could say so much more. But seeing Schindler’s List all around you and the words of some of those he saved as you get towards the end of the exhibition melts your heart. Yes, much of what you will see will send shivers down your spine and bring a tear of sorrow to your eyes, but you will also feel hope in your heart as you leave. So go. Just go. It’s incredible.

When was the last time you truly did something just for you? Start now!