Ghetto Heroes Square, Krakow

Ghetto Heroes Square is one of the city’s most powerful memorial spaces, located in the Podgórze district, where the Nazi-established Kraków Ghetto existed during World War II. Before the war, this area was an ordinary urban square, but in March 1941 it became the central gathering point for the more than 15,000 Jews forcibly relocated into the ghetto. The square served as a place of daily passage, trade, and movement under oppression—but it was also the site where families were assembled during mass deportations to the Bełżec extermination camp and later to the Płaszów labor and concentration camp. For many, it was the last place they stood in Kraków.

After the war, the square remained an open urban space, but its historical weight was not officially acknowledged until the early 2000s. In 2005, a memorial installation titled Ghetto Heroes Square transformed the area into a place of reflection. The memorial consists of dozens of large bronze chairs arranged across the square in varying sizes and groupings, each placed on slightly raised platforms that create the impression of floating above the pavement. The simple, empty chairs symbolize the belongings left behind during deportations and the overwhelming absence created by the destruction of the ghetto’s population.

On the north side of the square, a small police box still stands. During the deportations, the Nazis used it to identify and count the Jewish victims.

Today, Ghetto Heroes Square is a key site for those seeking to understand Kraków’s wartime history. It lies close to surviving fragments of the ghetto wall, which can still be viewed a short walk away.