Kraków-Płaszów Concentration Camp

Stand still for a moment and feel the ground under your feet. The grass here is uneven. It rises in low humps and dips into shallow hollows. Somewhere beyond the trees, a tram rattles along a city street. Dogs are walked here. Joggers pass. And yet this quiet, open hillside in the south of Kraków was once one of the darkest places in occupied Poland. Today, we will walk through it slowly, and with care.

You are in Podgórze, the district on the southern bank of the Vistula River. During the Second World War, the German occupiers built a camp on this land called Płaszów. It began in 1942 as a forced labour camp. In January 1944, it became a full concentration camp within the Nazi system. Tens of thousands of people passed through these fences. Most of them were Jews from Kraków and the surrounding region. Poles, Roma, and others were held here too.

Here is the first thing many visitors do not realise. The camp was built on top of two Jewish cemeteries. These were the burial grounds of Kraków's and Podgórze's Jewish communities. The Germans destroyed them. Gravestones were broken up and used to pave the camp roads. Prisoners walked every day over the names of their own grandparents and neighbours. When you notice a fragment of carved stone in the grass, remember this. The ground here holds two layers of loss.

The story of this camp is tied closely to the Kraków Ghetto. The ghetto stood just to the north, across the river from the old Jewish district of Kazimierz. In March 1943, the Germans liquidated it. Many people were killed in the streets. Others were deported to Auschwitz. Those judged fit for work were marched here, to Płaszów. For many families, that march was the last time they saw each other.

The camp's commandant from early 1943 was an Austrian SS officer named Amon Göth. Survivors described him as cruel and unpredictable. Many testified that he killed prisoners personally, sometimes for no reason at all. His villa still stands on a nearby street. It is a private house today, and not open to visitors. Please view it only from the road. Göth was captured after the war. He was tried in Kraków in 1946 and executed that same year.

Not far from Göth's house stands a second building from that time — a grey stone house that served the SS. It is one of very few original structures left on the site. Almost everything else is gone. The barracks, the workshops, the watchtowers, the fences... all were dismantled or destroyed. That is why the landscape looks so empty. The absence is not an accident. It is part of what happened here.

Now look towards the higher ground. One small hill inside the camp was used as an execution site. Prisoners called it by a crude nickname that has stayed in local memory. People were shot here in large numbers, including people brought from outside the camp. In 1944, as the Soviet army moved closer, the Germans tried to hide what they had done. Prisoners were forced to dig up the bodies and burn them. The aim was to leave no evidence behind.

In the 1960s, a large stone monument was raised on this land. You can see it from much of the site. It shows a row of human figures with their heads bowed. A deep split runs across their chests, as if each heart has been torn open. The memorial was built under the communist government of that time. Its original wording spoke broadly of victims of fascism. In later decades, more explicit Jewish memorials were added nearby, naming who most of the dead actually were.

Here is a second detail many people miss. Look for a single tomb standing alone among the grass. It belongs to a man from the Jewish community who died before the war. Almost every other grave in these cemeteries was destroyed. This one survived. Accounts differ on why. Some say it was simply too solid to break up easily. Standing beside it, you can begin to picture the cemetery that once filled this slope.

Many visitors arrive here because of a film. Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List told the story of Oskar Schindler. He was a German industrialist who protected over a thousand Jewish workers. Many of those workers were held in this camp. In 1944, Schindler arranged to move them to a new factory in what is now the Czech Republic. That move saved their lives. But note this: the film was not shot on this ground. Its camp scenes were filmed at a quarry elsewhere in Kraków.

The camp was emptied in stages from late 1944. Many prisoners were sent on to Auschwitz and other camps. When Soviet troops reached Kraków in January 1945, very little was left here. For decades afterwards, the site was mostly left as open grassland. Some of it was built over. In recent years, the city museum of Kraków has been working to develop this land as a proper memorial. You may see information panels and marked paths along your walk.

As you move around, please keep to the paths where you can. Remember that this is both a former camp and a cemetery. Human remains still lie in this soil. Jewish tradition treats such ground with great respect. Speak quietly. Do not climb on the monuments. If you want to leave a sign of remembrance, a small stone placed on a memorial is a traditional gesture in Jewish custom. Many visitors do this, and it is always welcome.

Before you leave, take one last look around you. Notice the city at the edges of the field — the apartment blocks, the road, the trees. Life in Kraków has grown up close to this place. That nearness is part of its meaning. As you walk back towards the streets, you may hear the trams again, and the ordinary sounds of the afternoon. Carry the names of this place with you. That is what memory asks of us.