Kazimierz – Jewish Quarter

Kazimierz – now a place becoming second center of the city, after famous Main Market Square. Place known for many historical buildings and lots of pubs and clubs such as Alchemia, one of the best and first pub and cultural center in Kazimierz.
Plac Nowy - Kazimierz, Krakow Apart from it’s presence Kazimierz has long and interesting past and for that fact is absolutely worth visiting by everyone.

History of Kazimierz

Kazimierz (Latin: Casimiria; Yiddish Kuzmir) is a historical district of Krakow, best known for being home to a Jewish community from the 14th century until the Second World War.

On 27 March 1335, King Kazimierz III (pol. Kazimierz Wielki), the Great declared the two western settlements to be a new city named Casimiria (later “Kazimierz”) after his name. He also began work on a campus for his University of Krakow, founded in 1364, but Kazimierz died in 1370 and the campus was never completed.

The Jewish community in nearby Krakow had lived undisturbed alongside their Christian neighbours under the protective King Kazimierz III. Later relations had deteriorated and pogroms began to occur with increasing frequency. Finally after a disastrous fire was blamed on them, the Jews of Krakow were expelled from the city in 1495 and forced to move nearby Kazimierz.

Kazimierz became the main spiritual and cultural centre of Polish Jewry, hosting many of Poland’s finest Jewish scholars, artists and craftsmen. Among its famous inhabitants were the Talmudist Moses Isserles, the Kabbalist Natan Szpiro, and the royal physician Shmuel bar Meshulam.

In 1791, Kazimierz lost its status as a separate city and became a district of Krakow. By the 1930s, Krakow had 120 officially registered synagogues and prayer houses scattered across the city and much of Jewish intellectual life had moved to new centres like Podgórze.

Kazimierz - jewish district of Krakow

During the Second World War, the Jews of Krakow, including those in Kazimierz, were forced by the Nazis into a crowded ghetto in Podgórze, across the river. Most of them were later killed during the liquidation of the ghetto or in death camps. The most known worldwide commemoration of these events is Steven Spielberg’s film – Shindler’s List. The story of a German businessman touched by the tragedy of the Second War World and the doom of the Jewish Nation so deeply that he dared to risk his own life to help rescue over 2000 Jews. Schindler’s factory is now deteriorated ruin but it remained as a symbol of humanity.

After the war, Kazimierz became a backwater area with a reputation for being unsafe at night. At least one synagogue building was torn apart by scavengers seeking hidden Jewish treasure. Many old buildings were not repaired and became empty shells.

However, since 1988, a popular annual Jewish Cultural Festival has re-introduced Jewish culture to a generation of Poles who have grown up without Poland’s historic Jewish community. In 1993, Steven Spielberg shot his film Schindler’s List largely in Kazimierz (in spite of the fact that very little of the action historically took place there) and this drew international attention to Kazimierz. Since 1993, there have been parallel developments in the restoration of important historic sites in Kazimierz and a booming growth in Jewish-themed restaurants, bars, bookstores and souvenir shops like that one in Galicia Jewish Museum. Nowadays Kazimierz is a social hub, second Krakow’s center for going out, home of many galleries and small cafees, picturesque place for afternoon walks and many more.