In the footsteps of the film The Schindler List in Krakow

Visit the unknown places of the scenes of the Spielberg film, a true story that tells what happened in the Płaszów camp and the Jewish ghetto of Podgórze

In 1992 Steven Spielberg built a replica of Nazi working camp in Płaszów as part of his film The Schindler List . The remains of this very realistic set are still visible today a few minutes’ walk from the centre of Krakow. Rebuilt from the original plans, the copy of the Płaszów camp was designed in a career just a few hundred meters from the place where the real camp was. Lebanon (or Kamieniołom Lebanon ), sheltering the filming site, is one of the places where the Płaszów detainees worked until death or murdered at random.

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In the spring, vegetation takes over the entire surface of the career. It is quite easy to enter this strange place. After you found your way on the trails formed by some curious visitors , you will finally arrive to the lowest level of the career, from which you can explore in more detail the former working camp . The whole career is visible from the edges, but it’s worth getting down to see what’s going on closer.

Below in the article you will find the details to go there.

The “Royal Way” or the aisle of Jewish tombstones

What we call it Royale has nothing noble. It is in fact the opposite... The original Plaszow camp was built in part on the site of Jewish cemeteries. In a theatrality that makes the mark of the Nazis, the tombstones were used for pave the road to the camp so that the detainees were forced to trap the relics of their ancestors by going "work". As shocking as it might seem, it was probably the last thing that worried the men and women who were trying to survive here. On the occasion of the film directed by Spielberg, mouldings of real Jewish tombstones were used to build a similar path in the middle of the career. Although they look like real, you can quite walk on it and observe more closely the details of the characters in Hebrew.

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Closing

The Płaszów camp was framed with a double electrified fence. The corridor between these fences was guarded by SS guards. This is reproduced identically in the career, close to the slabs in the form of tombstones. The remains left by the film shooting are incredibly convincing . The wood of fences seems to be decades old, while the shooting took place between 1992 and 1993. Maybe the engineers decorating the film used old beams? It is always true that the fences still visible today are very authentic, with porcelain isolators, some of which have broken since. Note that the fences of Auschwitz camp are concrete.

Flickr – Allie_Caulfield

Lime ovens

In the historical novel The Schindler List of the Australian author Thomas Keneally, who inspired the eponymous film, it can be read that the work in Lebanon’s career was focused on production of lime rather than the extraction of limestone in itself. To produce live lime, you need a lime oven, and that’s what it looks like to look like these structures in the form of towers on one side of the career. The limestone is poured upwards, blended with charcoal half-height, and bright lime leaves down. When you look at these structures, they seem to be several decades old, not the time of the film. Moreover, they do not appear on the screen, possibly by choice of the director. The career seems left to abandon, we may never be the truth about it.

These remnants may be similar to facilities to produce lime during the wartime operation of the Nazis, but they may also date from the war, when the career continued.

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Visiting the "false" Płaszów camp is a daring and troubling experience. However, if you want to go further in your discovery of concentration camps , this is a place to explore. The elements you will see here are only cinema scenes and not those of a real work camp. The Nazis destroyed the camp before the Russians arrived. Knowing this, one cannot prevent oneself from being moved by this “factice” place. Broken slabs on the ground at the fences of the camp, everything seems to make us think that we are at the heart of the old Płaszów camp. Yet, only the place has witnessed the horrors committed on the camp , and it is already enough to know it. The confusion between the "Hollywood" and historical versions is dazzling and arouses reflection.

The quarry seen from the south side with the Kopiec Krakusa – Copyright Toolito

Go further than Steven Spielberg's movie

By "nearer", understand "a few hundred meters". Indeed, the location of the real Płaszów camp was only a few meters from the career you visited. On the map below, I positioned the key locations of the site to allow you to run more easily.

Click on the map icons to see what they match.

You can see that by continuing your walk just after the career, you will fall on the Płaszów camp memorial .

Wikimedia – Dariusz Żukowski

Then head to the Amon Göth’s house :

Flickr – Lars K Jensen

How to get there?

The Lebanon quarry is located on the south bank of the Vistule River. From the center of the old age, you have to walk towards and through Kazimierz and cross the bridge Piłsudskiego or bridge Kladka Bernatka . From there, you can help you with the map above to locate you, and get to the butte Kopiec Krakus from which you will have an excellent view to the career. Trams 3 and 24 take you to the stop “Powstańców Wielkopolskich” which is also close to the hill.

The scenes of the film in Kazimierz district

For the scenes depicting the Jewish ghetto of Podgórze in Krakow, Steven Spielberg had to authentic Jewish quarter . He chose the Kazimierz district because this part of Krakow had not changed since the 1940s, while Podgórze had been partially rebuilt with modern buildings.

Flickr – jafsegal

The picture above shows a court of the place where suitcases and cases are thrown into the scene of the film where the Podgórze ghetto is liquidated. In the old Jewish quarters of Polish cities, this kind of place is typical. On this same photo, the staircase you see is the one under which Danka Dresner (the aunt of Genia, the little girl in the red coat) hides from the Jewish police who helped the Germans gather the Jews to “transport them to the East”: a euphemism to bring them into the gas chambers.

Visit Oskar Schindler (Musée) factory

If Oska Schindler lived at 7 ul. Straszewskiego , its factory, the Fabryka Schindlera , was (and still is) on the other side of Kazimierz and the Vistula, finally close to the Płaszów camp, at 4 ul. Lipowa . The latter visits like a museum , following the history of the Jews saved by Schindler, but above all the daily life of the Cracovians, and the activity of the Resistance during the General Government. The exhibited objects enriched by extensive photographic and filmographic material present in a complex way the life of Krakow and its inhabitants under the German occupation. The factory, which was one of the many Oskar Schindler owned, produced enamel kitchenware.

Oskar Schindler’s office in the factory museum – Wikimedia – Adrian Grycuk

List of Schindler is a memorable film whose courage and faith continue to inspire generations. Here is an extract:

Other activities to be undertaken in Krakow

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