This was part of Central Europe - Day 2 馃嚨馃嚤 馃敆.
I joined the World War II in Krak贸w walking tour at 10:30 AM. We started at The Cross of Katy艅, a memorial placed in the 1990s at the foot of Wawel Hill to honor the Polish officers and citizens massacred in the Katyn forest in 1940. We sat on the nearby benches in the Planty Park as our guide detailed the impact of Nazi and Soviet occupations on Poland and Krak贸w.
We passed by Oskar Schindler’s house, the apartment where the famous industrialist lived while running his enamel factory. Our next stop was the Archaeological Museum in Krak贸w, which is housed in a former prison building that saw significant use during the occupation; today, it stands as the oldest archaeological museum in Poland, preserving the country’s ancient heritage.
Moving forward, we passed the Matka Bo偶a 艁askawa (Our Lady of Graces), a historic statue where locals often stop to pray. We then entered Zau艂ek Estreichera, a quiet university courtyard featuring busts of prominent Polish intellectuals including Karol Estreicher, a defender of Polish culture, and King Casimir the Great, the monarch who famously “found Poland made of wood and left it made of stone.”
We also visited the Church of St. Anne, a premier example of Polish Baroque architecture. Its ornate white and gold interior served as a refuge for the academic community during the dark years of the war.
Our final and most sobering stop was the former Gestapo headquarters on Pomorska Street. The Gestapo was the Nazi Secret State Police and one of the main tools used by the fascists to exterminate the Jews and to imprison Poles and other nationalities that did not share their political ideals. The main highlights there were the old cells where the Gestapo would interrogate their prisoners. We could still see the engravings made by the prisoners on the walls that demonstrate the ordeal they suffered.
