Jews Lived Here.
Krakow, Poland
Kazimierz, now a district of Krakow, used to be a separate entity, a region self-governed by the Jews, who were sent there for the first time in 1495. For hundreds of years it remained a Jewish enclave – right through to World War II when the word ghetto became more appropriate.
Today it is just another part of the city, filled with cafes and shops on the lower floor, residential apartments on upper floors, synagogues sprinkled through the streets, but nowhere near the 120 that were here in 1930.
We took a walk (as we do).
Highlight would have to be the cemetery. Large yellow leaves constantly fluttered down from the tall ancient trees, accumulating in massive piles on the ground, partly obscuring the tombstones inscribed in either Hebrew, Polish or both. Locals gave us directions to this cemetery, which turned out to the “new” one, opened in 1800. But we were looking for the old one, in operation from 1551 to 1800, and did manage to find it, although the steep entrance fee and the fact that we had already taken cemetery photos, meant we just looked from the outside.
All interesting enough, but probably most memorable would be either the pierogi we picked up for dinner or the fact that it was colder than we anticipated and being one layer underdressed, we all froze!
Tags: 2008/09, history, postcard: Poland, recreation, weather
rayres
Hello,
Wanted to let you know that I think the photo of the leaf falling past the tombstone with Hebrew writing on it is amazing. I sat for some time just lost in this photo the day I first saw it. It would make a great entry in a photo competition…
Blessings,
Angela F
Hi Angela,
That day the leaves were falling CONSTANTLY. You couldn’t look in any direction without seeing them fall. So I tried to get a picture. IMPOSSIBLE. We realised the leaf needed to be against a dark background and so we picked out a tombstone and the kids threw leaves up in the air!!! They must have chucked fifty or so!! Fewer than half a dozen passed the viewfinder…..this was the best shot of a bad bunch. But we had a lot of fun!!!