Our Segway tour in Krakow took us through Kazimierz, also known as the Jewish Quarter. It was a cute neighborhood with some synagogues and Jewish restaurants. We stopped a couple times while on the Segways for our guide to give us some history and context, but we didn’t really get to take time to admire things, so we walked back there a couple days later to take some pictures and spend more time looking around. We also crossed the Vistula River over to the Old Jewish Ghetto. It was a weird feeling walking through the streets of the ghetto where Jews were once forced to live under such awful conditions. We took a moment to reflect and be thankful for our freedom and thankful everyone can now come and go as they please there.
The lower right is a picture of the Ghetto Heroes Square where there is a monument consisting of empty chairs. The exact meaning of the monument is unclear and somewhat debated. In fact, even the number of chairs there can’t seem to be agreed upon (we didn’t count). My guide when I went to Auschwitz said there were 68 chairs, representing the 68,000 Jews living in Krakow at the start of WWII. Anya’s and William’s guide told them that interpretation is wrong. A quick google search shows that the number of chairs is as low as 33 and as high as 70.
Hello Hartshorns!
What a profound experience! I was so delighted to receive William’s postcard from Krakow. Please tell him we miss him and that I’m proud of him for trying out all those Polish c’s and z’s and y’s!
Fondly,
Marianne
Hi Marianne!! William misses you guys too! He has really enjoyed his language studies through our trip — we are in Greece now and he is enjoying a new challenge of learning in a different alphabet!