Kazimierz, Kraków

These lanes belong to Kazimierz, once a separate royal town and now part of Kraków’s Old Town district. It was established in thirteen thirty-five. Its name commemorates King Casimir the Great.

For centuries, this was a town apart from Kraków, with a branch of the Vistula forming the divide between them. That vanished watercourse was filled near the close of the nineteenth century and became Józef Dietl Street, a tree-lined route through the former boundary. As you walk toward Szeroka Street, you enter the area that became Kazimierz’s Jewish quarter after Jews were moved here from Kraków in fourteen ninety-five.

Szeroka formed the focal space of this enclosed community, which developed synagogues, schools, cemeteries, and homes for prosperous traders and bankers; seven synagogues still survive. Jewish and Christian life met and influenced each other here across many generations. During the German occupation, Kraków’s Jews, including Kazimierz residents, were forced into the ghetto in Podgórze across the river, and most were murdered. Kazimierz is now both a major visitor destination and a lively cultural part of Kraków.