Ghetto Heroes' Square and the Eagle Pharmacy: visitor's guide
Krakow: former Jewish Ghetto guided walking tour
What is Ghetto Heroes' Square and why is it significant?
Plac Bohaterów Getta (Ghetto Heroes' Square) was the main assembly square of the Kraków Ghetto, used as the deportation staging point during the 1942–1943 liquidation actions. It is now marked by 70 empty metal chairs — a memorial to the deported residents. The Eagle Pharmacy on the square, run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz throughout the Ghetto's existence, is now a moving museum of Ghetto life.
The square and what happened here
Plac Bohaterów Getta — Ghetto Heroes’ Square — is a modest open space in the Podgórze district of Kraków, flanked by ordinary apartment buildings and a tram stop. It looks like a hundred other urban squares in Central European cities. That ordinariness is part of what makes it affecting: this unremarkable public space was, for two years, the epicentre of a catastrophe.
When the Nazis established the Kraków Ghetto in March 1941, this square — then called Plac Zgody (Harmony Square) — became the administrative and social centre of the enclosed area. The nearby ul. Józefińska 14 housed the Jewish Council (Judenrat), which was forced to administer the Ghetto under German orders. The square served as a marketplace, a gathering point, and — most grimly — the assembly location for deportation actions.
Between 1942 and 1943, thousands of Ghetto residents were assembled on this square and at adjacent streets before being transported to the Bełżec and Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camps. The final “liquidation action” of March 13–14, 1943 effectively ended the Ghetto: the 2,000 residents deemed useful for labour were marched to the KL Płaszów camp; those deemed unfit were killed in the Ghetto streets or deported immediately.
After the war the square was renamed in honour of those who resisted — hence “Bohaterów Getta” (Ghetto Heroes) — and for decades remained an ordinary municipal square without strong memorial character. The current memorial installation was created in 2005.
The memorial chairs
The dominant feature of today’s square is 70 oversized metal chairs, spread across the paving in irregular lines. They were designed by sculptors Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Łatak and installed in 2005. The chairs reference the furniture and belongings that Ghetto residents were forced to abandon when they were deported — the mundane domestic objects that became markers of a life interrupted.
The chairs are intentionally abstract: they are not figurative, not sentimental, not explicitly religious. They ask visitors to fill in the absence with their own understanding. Sixty-eight of the chairs are made of weathering steel (Corten); two smaller bronze chairs represent children. The installation occupies the entire square and is accessible at all times, free of charge.
At night, the chairs are dimly lit and the square is quiet — a different quality of experience than the busier daytime hours. Early morning visits, before tour groups arrive, allow for extended reflection.
The Eagle Pharmacy (Apteka Pod Orłem)
At the corner of Plac Bohaterów Getta 18, on the ground floor of an apartment building that faces the square, is the Eagle Pharmacy — the only pharmacy permitted to operate inside the Kraków Ghetto throughout its existence.
Tadeusz Pankiewicz was the pharmacy’s owner, a Polish Catholic pharmacist who had operated the business on what was then Plac Zgody since before the war. When the Ghetto was established around his building, the Germans allowed him to continue operating — as a commercial concession and because they needed the pharmaceutical services. Pankiewicz could have moved; he chose to stay.
Over the following two years, Pankiewicz and his assistants (Helena Krywaniuk, Aurelia Danek-Czortowa, and Irena Drobnik) provided not only medicines but a crucial civilian sanctuary. Jewish residents gathered at the pharmacy for information, for temporary shelter, for help obtaining documents. Pankiewicz sourced hair dye to help Jews pass as non-Jews, provided sedatives to parents trying to keep their children from crying during searches, and documented what he witnessed in meticulous notes that later became his memoir “The Kraków Ghetto Pharmacy” (published in Polish in 1947 and now available in English translation).
In 1983, Yad Vashem recognised Pankiewicz as Righteous Among the Nations — the Israeli designation for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.
The pharmacy is now a museum operated by the Museum of Kraków (Muzeum Krakowa). The interior preserves the pharmacy’s original layout, equipment, and some original furnishings. The exhibition presents:
- The history of the Ghetto from establishment to liquidation
- Pankiewicz’s testimony and archive
- Photographs taken inside and around the Ghetto (some by Raimund Titsch, the factory manager who secretly documented the community)
- Personal accounts of Ghetto residents collected from survivors and their families
- The specific stories of the pharmacy’s staff and their wartime activities
Allow 45–60 minutes for the full exhibition. The experience is intimate and deeply personal — this is not a large-scale museum but a carefully preserved site of individual human action within historical catastrophe.
Visiting information:
- Address: Plac Bohaterów Getta 18 (Podgórze)
- Opening hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10:00–17:00 (June–August: until 19:00); closed Monday
- Entry: 20 PLN / ≈€4.75 adults; 10 PLN / ≈€2.40 reduced; free on Tuesdays (limited capacity — arrive early)
- Language: Panels in Polish and English; audio guide in English, German, and Hebrew available (10 PLN / ≈€2.40)
The neighbourhood context
The immediate area around Plac Bohaterów Getta preserves several other Ghetto-era details visible without entering any museum:
The Judenrat building at ul. Józefińska 14 (2 minutes walk from the square) still stands — an ordinary apartment building with a commemorative plaque. During the Ghetto years it housed the forced Jewish self-administration apparatus.
The Ghetto walls: Two surviving fragments are a 10-minute walk from the square (details in the Kraków Ghetto guide). The fragment on ul. Lwowska 29 is the largest and most accessible.
The Optima building (ul. Lwowska 25), now converted to apartments, was used during the Ghetto period as an assembly point and processing centre for deportees.
Guided tours covering Ghetto Heroes’ Square
The memorial chairs and the pharmacy are most powerfully experienced with historical context. A guided tour of the Ghetto area, which places these sites within the full narrative of the occupation, makes the visit significantly more meaningful.
Former Jewish Ghetto guided walking tour — covers the square, pharmacy, and Ghetto walls 2-hour World War II Ghetto walking tour — focused on Podgórze and the occupation periodFor a tour that connects Kazimierz and the Ghetto in Podgórze in a single experience:
Jewish Quarter and Ghetto combined tour (3 hours, crosses both districts)Combining with Schindler’s Factory
The natural pairing for a visit to Ghetto Heroes’ Square is Schindler’s Factory Museum — a 10-minute walk south along ul. Lipowa. The two sites together tell complementary stories: the square and pharmacy show the Ghetto from the inside (daily life, deportation, individual resistance); the factory museum shows the occupation from a broader urban perspective with particular focus on the factory and its Jewish workers.
Allow a full half-day for both: 45 minutes at the square, 45 minutes at the pharmacy, 2.5–3 hours at Schindler’s Factory.
Schindler’s Factory with skip-the-line entryPractical notes
Getting there: Trams 3, 9, 11, 13, 24 to “Plac Bohaterów Getta” from the Old Town or Kazimierz (10–15 minutes, 4 PLN / ≈€0.95). From Kazimierz it is also a 15-minute walk across the Józef Piłsudski Bridge.
When to visit: Weekday mornings are quieter. The square can fill with tour groups between 10:00 and 13:00 in summer. Late afternoons are peaceful.
Nearby food: There are no significant restaurants immediately on the square. The nearest good options are back in Kazimierz (15-minute walk or 2 tram stops). A small café at the Schindler’s Factory MOCAK cultural complex provides coffee and light snacks.
Frequently asked questions about Ghetto Heroes’ Square
What do the 70 chairs represent?
The chairs were designed to evoke the furniture and everyday objects abandoned by Ghetto residents during deportation. There is no specific numerical symbolism to 70 — it was chosen as a number that fills the square effectively as a visual installation. The two smaller chairs represent children. The chairs are intentionally non-literal: they invite interpretation rather than prescribing a singular meaning.
Is the memorial square open at night?
Yes — the square is a public open space accessible at all hours. The chairs are illuminated with low lighting at night, creating a different and quieter atmosphere than during daytime touring hours. Night visits are particularly moving during the Jewish Culture Festival week in June/July.
How does this site relate to Schindler’s List?
The square appears in Spielberg’s film as the site of deportation scenes (though some of those sequences were filmed in Kazimierz rather than Podgórze for logistical reasons). The actual historical events that inspired those film sequences took place on and around this square. See the Schindler’s List filming locations guide for the relationship between film geography and historical geography.
Can children visit the Eagle Pharmacy?
Yes, though parental guidance is appropriate. The exhibition deals with deportation and persecution honestly but without graphic imagery. Children aged 10 and above can generally engage meaningfully; younger children may need age-appropriate explanations. The pharmacy is more intimate and less overwhelming than larger Holocaust institutions, which some families find makes it a more manageable first introduction to this history.
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