Schindler's List

After meandering around the city and seeing the Old Town and Jewish District, we headed to see the museum at Oscar Schindler's enamel factory. We crossed the river from the walls of the Jewish District to the factory, the same walk many Jews were thankful to make. The museum entitled Krakow under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945 is located in the administrative building of Schindler's factory. The whole factory is no longer still in tact, but the original entrance gate, staircases, and Oskar Schindler's office remain. The museum presents the history of Krakow's inhabitants, both Jewish and Polish, of Oskar Schindler, and of the prisoners of the Plaszow Concentration Camp he managed to save. The museum walks you through the years of the occupation in Krakow depicting what life was like via thematic units. In one of the exhibits you walk down cobblestone streets with Nazi flags hanging above you, just as the people of Krakow were forced to do on a daily basis. In another exhibit you are closed in by the "tombstone walls" just as the Jews were enclosed in the Jewish ghetto. Along the walls are excerpts describing life in the ghetto. One of the more emotional parts was watching interviews with people who were employed by Oskar Schindler at his factory. To hear them talk about how he saved them from the death camps and their eternal gratefulness was incredibly moving. It was important we visited the museum before we went to Auschwitz because it gave us a fuller understanding of the hardships going on in interwar Krakow under Nazi occupation.

The city-center exhibit (mentioned above)

Schindler's original office

Schindler's list of names