Fragment of the Krakow Ghetto Wall

In the gap between neighboring buildings, a short section of the wall with which the German occupation administration separated the Krakow Ghetto from the rest of the city has survived. In the spring of nineteen forty-one, barbed wire was first strung here, and then Polish workers hired by a German office built a three-meter brick barrier. The rounded tops of the masonry resemble matzevot, Jewish gravestones; elsewhere, the boundary was closed off by bricked-up doors, windows, and courtyard passages. The ghetto was surrounded not by a conventional line on a plan, but by a wall that can be measured with the eye and the hand.

In the autumn of nineteen forty-two, seventeen-year-old seamstress Gizela Grünberg decided to escape across the ghetto boundary on Lwowska Street. She knew that a new deportation was being prepared. Her older sister, Tauba Grünberg, had retained the work stamp on her identity card, while Gizela had not received a stamp after the previous roundup. To German officials, this meant that one sister was still needed as a worker, while the other could be sent out of the ghetto.

Both women sewed for the German firm of Julius Madritsch. The work sometimes made it possible to bring flour or sugar home and offered temporary protection from deportation. The workshop stood on Lwowska Street, right at the boundary. The German occupation administration drew this boundary in the spring of nineteen forty-one: first, barbed wire was put up; then Polish workers hired by a German office built a three-meter wall. In the gaps between buildings, masonry appeared with rounded tops resembling matzevot—Jewish gravestones. Elsewhere, courtyard gates were locked, and ground-floor doors and windows were bricked up. The police kept the keys. Leaving without a pass meant death; the same punishment threatened anyone who helped an escapee.

Gizela's school friend Gabriela Niedojadło agreed to help her. Gabriela lived outside, on the same Lwowska Street, and received her mother's consent to hide Gizela. On Saturday, Gizela called a child over by the fence, promised money, and sent the child for Gabriela. They agreed to meet the next day at the workshop.

On Sunday, Gizela left with the other women workers. Her pass was no longer valid, but the guards knew the girl by sight and had not yet received the new lists. She went up to the workshop's top floor and sat in the restroom for several hours, waiting for darkness.

Gabriela came to the locked gate and told the gatekeeper that she urgently needed to use the restroom. He let her in, but told her to come straight back down. When the girls left together, the gatekeeper noticed: one had entered, two were leaving. Gizela handed him the money she had prepared, took off the required armband with the star, and ran off holding Gabriela's hand.

The next day, German units began the deportation. Gizela's parents and younger brother were taken to the Belzec extermination camp and killed. Gizela herself hid with Gabriela for several weeks, but could not obtain suitable documents. Tauba remained alone in the emptied apartment and asked her sister to return. Gizela blended into a column of women workers and entered the ghetto again through the same boundary she had just crossed. Later, both sisters were sent to Płaszów, then to Auschwitz. Both survived the war.

The workshop's exact gate has not survived. Before us is another section of the same boundary on Lwowska Street—about twelve meters of brick wall between buildings. The inscription on the memorial plaque says that the road to the extermination camps began here. “Here” means from the entire ghetto: Gizela's parents and brother left it in a deportation column, while she crossed the boundary twice through locked residential gates.