Kazimierz, Kraków

Kazimierz is the former town around you, created as a royal city in the fourteenth century and now folded into Kraków’s Old Town district. It takes its name from King Casimir the Great. A former branch of the Vistula once separated Kazimierz from Kraków; when its bed was filled, it became the tree-lined route now called Józef Dietl Street.

From the late fifteenth century, this area contained a Jewish quarter whose enclosed streets gathered synagogues, schools, cemeteries, and the homes of prosperous merchants and bankers. The quarter became a major home of Jewish learning and culture, associated with figures including Rabbi Moses Isserles and the Kabbalist Natan Spira. During the German occupation, Kraków’s Jews were forced from Kazimierz into the ghetto at Podgórze across the river, and most were murdered.

After the war, violence struck again here when a mob burned the Kupa Synagogue and assaulted Jewish residents. Kazimierz now draws visitors while remaining a lively focus for Kraków’s cultural life.