Krakow, Poland

This is a picture of a Jewish family that lived around  1925-1928. It was taken in the Polish city Krakow. Jews existed in Krakow since the 13th Century.


In 1939  there were around 70,000 Jews in Krakow.  Krakow is located in Poland. When Germany invaded Poland, in the first week of September 1939 it occupied Krakow.. The German military authorities initiated immediate measures aimed at isolating, exploiting and persecuting the Jews of the city.  In 1940 the German's started to expel Jews to countrysides. By 1941 55,000 Jews were expelled. Therefore only 15,000 Jews remained in Krakow.


In 1941 the Germans established the Krakow ghetto. They concentrated the remaining Jews in this ghetto. The Germans then established factories in this ghetto including the Optima and the Madritsch textile factories. In these factories Jews deployed to forced labor.The SS and police planned the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in 1943. This was in response to the Himmler's order in October 1942 to complete the murder of the Jews. On March 13 and 14 in 1943 the SS and police carried out the operation, shooting around 2,000 Jews in the ghetto.


After the war around 4,282 Jews were in Krakow. By 1946, Polish Jews returning from the Soviet Union increased the Jewish population of the city to approximately 10,000. Pogroms in August 1945 and throughout 1946 as well as number of murders of individual Jews led to the emigration of many of the surviving Krakow Jews. By the  1990s, only a few hundred Jews remained.