Ghetto Heroes Square Memorial in Kraków

Krakow's Jewish Ghetto Memorial, the so-called “empty chairs memorial,” was designed by architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Latak and inaugurated in 2005. This memorial placed in Ghetto Heroes Square in Krakow is dedicated to the thousands of Jewish of Cracow who were forced to live here in a ghetto untill the last of them was deported to a concentration or death camp. Each chair resembles thousand Jewish victims. According to the website krakowbooking.com “In 2005, it was decided to create a monument in the square to commemorate all the victims and the tragic events of WWII. The written memoirs of Tadeusz Pankiewicz (The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy) had proved very inspiring, with one extract from his extraordinary book reading: “In Plac Zgody, an incalculable number of wardrobes, tables, sideboards and other furniture was rotting.” These words were the reason behind the creation of a special and highly unusual monument made of oversized metal chairs, intended to symbolise the items left behind in the square before their owners, the Jewish victims, embarked on their final journey. The monument designers decided to place 33 large chairs in the square and 37 smaller ones that people could sit on. The majority of the chair-monuments were arranged in rows (reminiscent of the way that the permanent residents of the ghetto had to stand during the roll-calls) and faced the former Under The Eagle Pharmacy. Three of them faced Lwowska Street, where a fragment of the original ghetto wall has been preserved. As for the smaller chairs, the artists decided to place them facing the square, surrounding the larger chairs at the same time. In addition, a special line was also marked out on the paved surface of Ghetto Heroes Square which symbolises the ghetto wall and the border that was established between the ghetto and the German side. Two important dates were placed on the facade of the former bus station to commemorate the dates that the ghetto was established (1941) and then liquidated (1943). Every year, on the anniversary of the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in Podgórze, many Krakow residents and visitors meet in Ghetto Heroes Square to walk in silence along the same route that the Jews marched on 13 and 14 March, 1943. In 2006, the memorial was awarded the European Prize for Urban Public Space, and in 2011 it received the Gold Award in the Urban Quality Award 2011.” These photos were taken in March 2023.