Sunday in Kazimierz, the Schindler Museum, and (for some) the Wielcizka Salt Mine

On Sunday morning we went to church first. Although Kazimierz is full of Jewish sites, it also boasts a 15th century Cathedral called Corpus Christi. Joseph wrote about the experience:

awesome interior

Is that a priest walking in with a backpack?

The interior was ornate and covered in religious art and gold, lending a mystical quality to the church as well as radiant power. The acoustics and high ceiling caused an echo whenever the priests or deacons spoke or sung, and the massive organ high in the back of the congregation intensified the feelings of awe and wonder during times of music.

Mass itself was challenging to follow - it was in Polish.  The recitation of the Nicean Creed was recognizable but what surprised all the Catholics in our group was that when communion was given, the priests approached the congregation sitting in their pews, rather than having the people who wanted to take communion go forward and line up towards the altar.  Also, no wine was given - just the priests drank it. The most unusual feature of the experience was that the church was full.  This is not typical in the U.S.  Poland remains one of the most Catholic nations in Europe, and attendance testified to that. 

Then we went to a synagogue.  Prof. Myers took us to a part of the old Jewish quarter that had two synagogues.  The oldest synagogue (called "The Old Synagogue") serves today as a museum.  Then we went to the second oldest synagogue, the Remuh (reh-moo) Synagogue and cemetery.  Samantha C wrote about our experience:

notice the Polish eagle
in this lamp sconce
in the Remuh synagogue!

This synagogue, dating to the 16th century, is one of the city's oldest synagogues and named after Rabbi Moses Isserles (ReMU). He was regarded as one of the most educated scholars in all of Europe during his lifetime. His major contribution was in Jewish law.  A rabbi who had been exiled from Spain and moved to the Ottoman Empire, Rabbi Joseph Karo, had summarized Jewish law into a major law code. He called it Shulhan Aruch, or "set table."  Rabbi Isserles added notes to that law code so that it would also include Polish and German Jewish traditions, and he called that "the tablecloth."  It is an important code of religious Jewish law for Orthodox Jews today.

Upon entrance above the gate is an arch with the Hebrew inscription: “The new synagogue of the ReMA, of blessed memory.” The inside of the synagogue is white painted limestone with hanging chandeliers with a central rectangular bimah decorated with a crowned menorah whose style appears to have been inspired by the popular art of the region.

the cemetery wall is now made
out of the broken pieces of
the old tombstones

Next to the synagogue is the Old Jewish Cemetery of Kraków which was established in 1535.  The latest burial was 1800.  During the German occupation of Poland, the Nazis destroyed the cemetery. They tore down the walls and broke tombstones. This type of behavior was common during the occupation. In the newer Kazimierz cemetery they hauled away tombstones to be used as paving stones in the camps, and Prof. Myers told us about how the Jewish cemetery in her grandmother's Polish town was destroyed because it was used for aerial target practice by Nazis. Luckily the tombstone of Rabbi Moses Isserles is one of the few that remained intact.


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Matthew writes about his warm feelings for Kazimierz:

The Kazimierz district in Krakow was something unlike I've ever seen before. It was a small town with a big town feeling. The thing I loved the most about the Kazimierz district was the Jewish area in Szeroka square.  It make me feel like I was stepping back in time. Most of the people hanging out there today are Polish people who are not Jewish, and it made me happy to see that they are curious and interested about Jewish culture, life, and history in a place where Judaism had thrived for almost a millennium. The best thing abut the Jewish quarter though was the food. On Saturday night I had dinner with my dad at a Jewish cafe and had some amazing stuffed cabbage with latkes. The next day I went back to the same restaurant, Ariel Jewish Cafe, with my friend Joseph and had some fantastic matzoh ball soup! I was so proud to see that there is some sort of revival of Jewish culture and life coming back to Poland.

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Here is Jessica's description of the the Schindler Museum:

We expected that the Schindler Museum would focus on the interactions in Schindler's factory during the Nazi occupation in Poland. In fact, the Museum focuses on the city of Krakow as a whole and the coexistence between the different ethnic and religious groups in Poland from 1939 to 1945.

replica of  items from
the concentration camps

The layout of the museum is chronological. The tour guide wanted us to grasp from this experience the fact that the bad treatment of the Jews in Krakow began on a small scale, worsening over the years. The first sign of humiliation was in 1939 Jews where were required to wear a band around their arm clearly depicting them as Jews to the rest of society. The humiliation and mistreatment grew in 1941 when Nazis initiated the period of confiscation, taking away all their personal belongings, from jewelry, art, homes; in the course of this years the Jews were segregated into a ghetto, and in 1942-43 they were deported to the Kraków-Płaszów concentration camp, a camp for forced-labor for Jews, and to death camps.

One of the things I enjoyed from the tour was the comparison between the real Oskar Schindler and Spielberg's Schindler. First, Oskar Schindler's real office was twice or even three times bigger from that of the movie. Second, in the movie he is portrayed as literally dictating all of 1,100 names to his accountant Itzhak Stern, where in reality the list was made by different people, compiled and combined to create a master list. And lastly, in the movie Schindler clearly states he wanted 1,100 names in the list because that's all the money he had for the funds demanded by SS Goeth; we learned that there were actually 1,000 names on the list.

In the Museum's office, the only remaining original decoration was the huge map on the wall. It was 85" x 138" and painted with light blue and mustard yellow paint. Schindler used it to mark the German troop movements. Opposite to this map, in the middle of the room, is a glassed off case full of pans created by the Jews working him in his factory.

One message of the Schindler's Museum is that a goal of the Nazis was to ultimately get rid of the Polish culture, and the epitome of that is Krakow from 1939 to 1945. However as we see now, the Nazis did not succeed and the Polish culture remains. The Museum teaches the world what people are capable of. What differentiates the Schindler's Factory Museum from other museums is the story of a wealthy man literally paying for lives of Jews while still being part of the Nazi regime. Regardless of his motives, he saved not only 1,000 lives, but enabled those people to survive and create families. The people on his list, whose photos and statements are presented at the end of the tour, thank Schindler for their lives, those of their descendents, and the preservation of their culture.


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It might surprise blog readers to know that one of their group deliberately wakes up early to engage in energetic exercise, or uses free time to run around but not to souvenir shops.  Serena is a long-distance runner, and here is her description of her morning routine in Warsaw and Poland:

The sun starts rising around 4 am in Warsaw, so when I went out of the hotel to for my run at 7 am, it was already bright.  During my first run I was a little scared, since I did not exactly know which route would be safe.  Only a few people were out and about, and I wondered if there were any runners in the city.  I ran down the street looking for a park, and after turning I saw a man running on the opposite side of the street!  My mood instantly improved and my pace slightly increased. I felt safe the entire time and wished I could have run longer and explored, but I had to return for breakfast.

fleet-footed Serena

On our first morning in Krakow I was too tired from the previous days of walking, so I did not wake up early to run.  But during the Sunday afternoon free time, I was determined to run despite the many, many people out on the streets.  I ran through the green belt surrounding the Old Town.  I kept getting stares, so I think that not many people run here. It was so beautiful though, it was absolutely worth it.  I wish I had more time to run through more of the cities, but I'll take what I can get!

Thirteen people added an extra event to their trip, and Sam T describes it here:

statue of King Casimir
in the salt mine

Our trip to the Wielcizka Salt Mine was a crystalline adventure! We began by following our tour guide down fifty-four floors of wooden stairs to make it quite a distance down to the shafts -- the deepest point was 135m (about 442 ft) below the surface. Modern mining operations began in 1368 as an effort to get a supply of the rare mineral.  King Casimir approved the venture, and it continued through the centuries until 1996 when it ceased out of concern for the stability of the town above the mine.  (Also, by that time, rock salt was plentiful from other sources).

inside the mine, looking downward

very salty water

The mine itself has a complex industrial ventilation system that keeps the air temperature maintained at a cool 14-16 degrees Celsius (57-60 degrees Fahrenheit). The salt itself is 320g of salt per liter of water -- saltier than the Dead Sea! As such, it's impossible to both sink or swim in the lake waters underground.

The mine itself has definitely become a tourism hub, boasting 1.2 million visitors each year. They even offer marriage ceremonies and receptions in their grand ballroom, and hold mass every Sunday.

Through interesting voice-over exhibitions and wonderous scenes, the Wielcizka Salt Mine stands the test of time as a little slice of history.