Passport 2 Travel

Walked around the historical port city of Gdansk with its city gates, and colorful Ulica Dluga.

I visited the Uphagen House whose furnished interior was typical of the houses in the 18th century.

Also toured the Main Town Hall with its ornately decorated meeting rooms.

I took the tram to the former Jewish ghetto of Podgorze which lies south of Kazimierz across the Vistula River. It was here at today's Plac Bohaterow Getta where thousands of the city's Jews were forcibly moved and incarcerated in March 1941. ("Schindler's List" depicts the sad scene of the Jews loading their belongings onto carts and trudging over the bridge into Podgorze.)

Ghetto Heroes Square (Plac Bohaterow Getta)
The memorial includes 33 large empty chairs and 37 smaller chairs located on the edge of the square and at the tram stops. This square was called the Umschlagplatz by the Nazis. It was the place where the Jews had to assemble before being transported to the Belzec death camp in two separate actions in June 1942 and October 1942. The Podgorze Ghetto was liquidated on March 13, 1943 when the Jews who were able to work were sent to the Plaszow forced labor camp just outside the city of Krakow, and the rest were sent to the death camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Surviving Podgorze ghetto wall with a commemorative plaque at Lwowska Street. The ghetto wall looked as though it had been made with tombstones put close together.

I took the tram back to Krakow Glowny and got a tram to Nowa Huta ("New Steel Works"), a former Soviet Socialist planned workers' community outside of Krakow. Nowa Huta's main Central Square (plac Centralny) was ironically renamed for the anti-communist Ronald Reagan.

At the end of the day, I got my luggage at the hotel, and took the train to the airport for a flight to Gdansk.