Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta)
Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta) features on the Gingerguide audio walk through Kraków. Give it roughly ~20 min: enough to look, hear a two to three minute story on the spot, and ask the AI guide whatever the story leaves open.
- Type monument
- Suggested visit ~20 min
- Kraków Kraków guide
About Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta)
In the former Kraków Ghetto, seventy empty steel chairs mark the square where Jews were assembled before deportation to the camps in 1942 and 1943.
Plac Bohaterów Getta (Ghetto Heroes' Square), formerly Plac Zgody, lies in Podgórze and stood at the heart of the Kraków Ghetto, which the Germans established here in March 1941. The square was the main assembly and deportation point of the ghetto. In 1942 thousands of Jews were sent chiefly to the Bełżec extermination camp; in the final liquidation of 13-14 March 1943, roughly 3,000 people were deported to Auschwitz and about 2,000 able-bodied prisoners to the Płaszów forced-labour camp, while around 2,000 were shot in the ghetto. Since 2005 the square has held a memorial of large empty steel chairs, designed by architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak, most often described as seventy chairs (some sources say sixty-eight). They evoke the belongings left behind after the deportations, recalled in the memoir of the pharmacist Tadeusz Pankiewicz, whose Eagle Pharmacy on the square is now a museum branch of the Museum of Kraków.
How long is a visit to Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta)?
Set aside roughly ~20 min for Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta). That covers a good look and the narrated story, and because you set the pace you can always stay on.
Is Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta) worth your time?
Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta) is among the 20 narrated highlights the Gingerguide team chose for Kraków, so it is worth a look. Hear the story for the context, then ask the AI guide for anything more.
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Hear the story of Ghetto Heroes' Square (Plac Bohaterów Getta)
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