The Ghetto Heroes Square
The Ghetto Heroes Square
The Ghetto Heroes Square
4.5
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Neighborhood: Stare PodĂłrze
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4.5
1,553 reviews
Excellent
795
Very good
538
Average
197
Poor
21
Terrible
2
Vanessa
Lytham St Anne's, UK3,354 contributions
Feb 2023
You don't need to pay extorniate amounts to the guys on the golf carts touting for business. It's a ten minute walk from old town to this little square. Nothing much there, but these chairs (which nobody touches or dares to sit on!). We sat and had coffee at 'Coffee To Go' and googled the chairs. A tribute to the furniture all the jewish people had to leave behind when they left the ghetto. What a lovely tribute and worth a visit! There is also a museum for the oldest pharmacy on the square which seemed really popular!. Definitely worth a walk down there to see. Also, 2 minute walk from Schindlers factory, so you can see both on the same visit.
Written February 26, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
A8686IHmichaelw
Perth, Australia35 contributions
Sep 2023 • Solo
This is an interesting place to visit to see the square. The layout of the sculptures is thought provoking. There is not a lot of information provided in a English at the site. Need to merge this visit with other activities in the same area to get value out of the location. For example also visit the ghetto wall.
Written September 4, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Paula
Wigan, UK4 contributions
Apr 2022 • Family
Great to see the chairs. They are not where our map said they were & were tricky to find. They are on the opposite side of the river to the old town and are close to the Jewish ghetto. Near to a big bus terminal - come over the bridge & go straight ahead they are on the right hand side. On the far corner of the square is the pharmacy which helped save lives during WW11.
Written May 1, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Geoff L
West Wickham, UK17 contributions
Apr 2023 • Couples
Have done free walking tours in Rome and Bucharest and all been very good: this was no exception.
Went with Walkative -yellow umbrella group through freewalkingtours.com. The start time and place was correct and punctual.
Our guide (my apologies for not remembering his name) was an ex history student, around late thirties with a pony tail. He was excellent. The information he provided on the tour of the Jewish quarter and ghetto was very informative and interesting. You could tell he was passionate about his subject and his country. Through his knowledge of Krakow during occupied times and the knowledge of our Auschwitz guide we began to understand what the Jewish and Polish community had to endure during the Nazi occupation.
We found out a lot about Schindler, who is more of a figurehead for what he did rather than a hero, and also about other Polish people who also helped Jews escape but were never recognised for what they did. We feel that maybe the Krakow local government should pay more homage to them in more openly visible ways.
This is definitely a worthwhile tour and thank our guide for an extremely interesting 2 -3 hr tour.
Went with Walkative -yellow umbrella group through freewalkingtours.com. The start time and place was correct and punctual.
Our guide (my apologies for not remembering his name) was an ex history student, around late thirties with a pony tail. He was excellent. The information he provided on the tour of the Jewish quarter and ghetto was very informative and interesting. You could tell he was passionate about his subject and his country. Through his knowledge of Krakow during occupied times and the knowledge of our Auschwitz guide we began to understand what the Jewish and Polish community had to endure during the Nazi occupation.
We found out a lot about Schindler, who is more of a figurehead for what he did rather than a hero, and also about other Polish people who also helped Jews escape but were never recognised for what they did. We feel that maybe the Krakow local government should pay more homage to them in more openly visible ways.
This is definitely a worthwhile tour and thank our guide for an extremely interesting 2 -3 hr tour.
Written April 17, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sandy O
Sauk City, WI1,176 contributions
Jul 2022
While standing here you realize that the building at the end was the actual guard shack. Heroes Square was the largest open spot in the Ghetto. People could come here to escape the overcrowded tenaments. This is also the place where deportation took place. The chairs were put here in 2005 to represent the 68000 people who were deported from here.
Written August 30, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sarah C
18 contributions
Feb 2022 • Couples
We went quite early on our way to visit Oskar Schindlers factory. There was no body else there other than a couple of residents passing through. It is a very moving tribute to the people that lived there. I later found online the picture that inspired the chairs
Written February 26, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Vierdank
Stockholm, Sweden5,152 contributions
Sep 2022
Deportation square. Five minutes walk from Schindler's factory/museum.
Recommended walk is Schindler, the Square and on to the Kazmierz Jewish area.
It's nothing much to see if you're not aquinted with the history. So, if not: do your homework and you'll learn that this was a really heavy place of deportation.
The little "house" at the end of the square is the old guard building.
The chairs were installed in 2005 (if I'm not wrong) to commemorate the nearly 70 000 deported persons in the final stages of the holocaust.
Don't miss it if you're in the area.
Recommended walk is Schindler, the Square and on to the Kazmierz Jewish area.
It's nothing much to see if you're not aquinted with the history. So, if not: do your homework and you'll learn that this was a really heavy place of deportation.
The little "house" at the end of the square is the old guard building.
The chairs were installed in 2005 (if I'm not wrong) to commemorate the nearly 70 000 deported persons in the final stages of the holocaust.
Don't miss it if you're in the area.
Written October 6, 2022
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Traveller162014
Leeds, UK1,087 contributions
Mar 2023 • Friends
My friend and I walked here from the Old Town of Krakow. We incredibly moved and learned a lot about the events that took place here. Something we should never forget and never stop learning about. Deeply moving.
Written March 31, 2023
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Robert O
Rotterdam, The Netherlands3,985 contributions
Oct 2020
This square just across the river in Podgorze suburb was the scene of immense crimes in Nazi-occupied Poland early 1940s. From it thousands of Jewish people were deported to the gaschambers in Belzec and Auschwitz.
70 empty chairs each representing 1000 of the last 7000 victims that had remained in the ghetto until its liquidation in March 1943 stand spread over the square. Until the very last moment people had clung to the idea that they would just be moved and had taken stuff (mostly in bundles, but also some furniture) with them. They were forced to abandon it on the square. Like cattle they were herded to the railway station at Prokocim to be transported to the death camps.
A minority of people had seen it coming and had resisted with attacks on German troops in the months prior to the liquidation. A plaque at the north side of the square remembers them as heroes. The text is revealing "we are fighting for three lines in history only to show that Jewish youth did not go like sheep to the slaughter".
After the liquidation of the ghetto, Krakow was declared a 'free zone' (Juden frei, meaning free from Jews). Only empty chairs were left.
70 empty chairs each representing 1000 of the last 7000 victims that had remained in the ghetto until its liquidation in March 1943 stand spread over the square. Until the very last moment people had clung to the idea that they would just be moved and had taken stuff (mostly in bundles, but also some furniture) with them. They were forced to abandon it on the square. Like cattle they were herded to the railway station at Prokocim to be transported to the death camps.
A minority of people had seen it coming and had resisted with attacks on German troops in the months prior to the liquidation. A plaque at the north side of the square remembers them as heroes. The text is revealing "we are fighting for three lines in history only to show that Jewish youth did not go like sheep to the slaughter".
After the liquidation of the ghetto, Krakow was declared a 'free zone' (Juden frei, meaning free from Jews). Only empty chairs were left.
Written December 27, 2020
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Hawk470
Baltimore, MD2,557 contributions
Jun 2019
A short walk across a bridge over the Vistula from Kazimierz, the bustling historical center of Jewish Krakow and home to many of the key sites, brings you to the former industrial area of Podgorze which has undergone much gentrification in recent years; with residences, restaurants, hotels and shops sprouting up.
In March 1941, Krakow’s Jewish population was forced to abandon their homes in Kazimierz and the rest of the city, as well as many of the surrounding towns and villages, and move into the ghetto constructed across the river in Podgorze. There you will find several monuments (in the broadest sense of the term), commemorating the inhuman treatment of the population and the resulting tragic murder of thousands when the liquidation of the ghetto began in May 1942.
In addition to some fragments of the ghetto wall, several monuments stand out. Each unique and each telling a complementary story to the others.
The incredibly poignant chair memorial – 70 empty metal chairs arrayed across the Plac Bohaterow Getta (Ghetto Heroes Square) -- gives silent testimony to the crimes committed on that very spot – the brutal roundups, executions in the street, and the herding of the population into cattle cars for extermination at the Belzec death camp and later, the Plaszow Labor Camp nearby, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the aftermath of the war, the guard house became a public toilet and the square, a parking lot. In 2005, the memorial was created with the 70 empty chairs symbolizing the thousands who disappeared and were murdered.
Also, on the square, you will find another monument. This one with a different message. The Eagle Pharmacy was run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz and his staff, the only non-Jewish Poles who lived and conducted their lives in the Ghetto. Just a few rooms, the small museum recounts the story of the Ghetto, the pharmacy and the role it played in Ghetto life. In addition to dispensing medicine, the pharmacy provided a venue for information exchange, illegal correspondence and money delivery and a hiding place for religious and family valuables. For his efforts, in 1983 Tadeusz Pankiewicz was awarded a medal as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's Yad Vashem.
Nearby, you will also find Oskar Schindler’s enamelware factory which employed Jews and through which he saved hundreds of lives. For this, he and his wife Emilie also were named Righteous Among the Nations. In addition to honoring Schindler and his employees, the museum covers Krakow’s history during the occupation more broadly and with artifacts and multimedia displays.
A visit to Podgorze can be somber, but the memory of the righteous souls who worked here and saved many lives helps to balance your view of humanity.
In March 1941, Krakow’s Jewish population was forced to abandon their homes in Kazimierz and the rest of the city, as well as many of the surrounding towns and villages, and move into the ghetto constructed across the river in Podgorze. There you will find several monuments (in the broadest sense of the term), commemorating the inhuman treatment of the population and the resulting tragic murder of thousands when the liquidation of the ghetto began in May 1942.
In addition to some fragments of the ghetto wall, several monuments stand out. Each unique and each telling a complementary story to the others.
The incredibly poignant chair memorial – 70 empty metal chairs arrayed across the Plac Bohaterow Getta (Ghetto Heroes Square) -- gives silent testimony to the crimes committed on that very spot – the brutal roundups, executions in the street, and the herding of the population into cattle cars for extermination at the Belzec death camp and later, the Plaszow Labor Camp nearby, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. In the aftermath of the war, the guard house became a public toilet and the square, a parking lot. In 2005, the memorial was created with the 70 empty chairs symbolizing the thousands who disappeared and were murdered.
Also, on the square, you will find another monument. This one with a different message. The Eagle Pharmacy was run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz and his staff, the only non-Jewish Poles who lived and conducted their lives in the Ghetto. Just a few rooms, the small museum recounts the story of the Ghetto, the pharmacy and the role it played in Ghetto life. In addition to dispensing medicine, the pharmacy provided a venue for information exchange, illegal correspondence and money delivery and a hiding place for religious and family valuables. For his efforts, in 1983 Tadeusz Pankiewicz was awarded a medal as one of the Righteous Among the Nations by Israel's Yad Vashem.
Nearby, you will also find Oskar Schindler’s enamelware factory which employed Jews and through which he saved hundreds of lives. For this, he and his wife Emilie also were named Righteous Among the Nations. In addition to honoring Schindler and his employees, the museum covers Krakow’s history during the occupation more broadly and with artifacts and multimedia displays.
A visit to Podgorze can be somber, but the memory of the righteous souls who worked here and saved many lives helps to balance your view of humanity.
Written August 6, 2019
This review is the subjective opinion of a Tripadvisor member and not of Tripadvisor LLC. Tripadvisor performs checks on reviews as part of our industry-leading trust & safety standards. Read our transparency report to learn more.
Sandya
Charlotte, NC58 contributions
Which number tram from ibis hotel city center to the heroes square?
Rose D
Cambridge, UK53 contributions
I'm really sorry we walked there. Sorry not to be more help. The taxis are cheap and they don't rip you off. I suggest you get a map and walk as you see so many sights along the way.
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Claim your listingThe Ghetto Heroes Square - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (2024)
Frequently Asked Questions about The Ghetto Heroes Square
- According to Tripadvisor travelers, these are the best ways to experience The Ghetto Heroes Square:
- Full Bike Tour - the Old Town, Jewish Qtr & the Ghetto NEW BIKES (From $44.48)
- Krakow: Private Guided City Tour by Electric Car (From $81.37)
- Sightseeing Bike Tour of Krakow (From $32.55)
- Private Krakow City Tour, Old Town and Jewish Quarter in one day (From $108.50)
- Krakow Jewish Quarter and Ghetto Tour with local historian PhD (From $245.00)
- Hotels near The Ghetto Heroes Square:
- (0.03 mi) Targowa 4/15, Studio, Cracow
- (0.04 mi) La Gioia Kazimierz Modern Apartments
- (0.09 mi) Lwowska 1
- (0.10 mi) Qubus Hotel Krakow
- (0.08 mi) Aparthotel Adler
- Restaurants near The Ghetto Heroes Square:
- (0.02 mi) Telepizza
- (0.02 mi) Tworzywo
- (0.02 mi) Madras Bistro
- (0.03 mi) Solna 1
- (0.07 mi) Galicja Po Kolei
- Attractions near The Ghetto Heroes Square:
- (0.02 mi) Eagle Pharmacy - Museum of Krakow
- (0.03 mi) Apteka Pod Orłem
- (0.10 mi) SPA Relaksarium Lwowska 1
- (0.16 mi) Krakowfy
- (0.12 mi) Emperor Jozef Ii Monument