Online Encyclopedia
Kazimierz
This article is about a district of Kraków. For other meanings of "Kazimierz" see Kazimierz (disambiguation)
Kazimierz (Latin: Casimiria; Yiddish Kuzmir) is a historical district of Kraków (Poland), best known for being home to a Jewish community from the 15th century until the Second World War.
| Contents |
History
Kazimierz was founded as a separate town by King Casimir the Great in 1335 and named after him. It was built on an island on the Vistula River just south of Kraków which was then Poland's capital city. Today, the northern branch of the river no longer exists so there is no physical border between Kazimierz and Kraków's Old Town. Kazimierz was chiefly a merchant town and a competitor for the nearby capital.
In 1495 the Jews who had lived in the western part of Kraków were expelled to make room for a new campus of the Jagiellonian University, and forced to move to Kazimierz. From then on Kazimierz was divided into two parts – a Christian one in the west and a Jewish one in the east. Eventually, Kazimierz became the main spiritual and cultural center of Polish Jewry. For centuries it was a place dotted with churches and synagogues where Poles and Jews lived peacefully side by side.
In 1800 Kraków's administrative borders expanded and Kazimierz became one of the city's districts. During the Second World War, the Jews were transferred by the Nazis from Kazimierz to a ghetto in Podgórze , just across the river. Most of them were later killed during the liquidation of the ghetto or in death camps.
After the war Kazimierz became a backwater area with rather bad reputation. However, this has completely changed during the last decade when many of the district's monuments were restored while mushrooming cafés and restaurants – many of them Jewish-themed – started to attract locals and tourists alike. Kazimierz has also been the site of the Jewish Culture Festival since 1988. Steven Spielberg shot his Schindler's List here in 1993.
Sights
Christian part
1. Market Square (Wolnica) with a town hall, now housing an ethnographic museum
2. Gothic St Catherine's Church
3. Gothic Corpus Christi Church
4. Baroque Church on the Rock , the site of Saint Stanislaus's martyrdom
5. Museum of municipal engineering
Jewish part
6. Old Synagogue, now housing a Jewish History museum
7. Remuh Synagogue, the only one still active, and nearby Remuh Cemetery
8. High Synagogue
9. Isaac Synagogue
10. Kupah Synagogue
11. Tempel Synagogue