Monday March 9:
The Berlin Group and the Krakow Group met today for two tours: the first of which took place in the morning the Kazimierz Tour and the second in the afternoon, the art nouveau. Although Kazimierz has never been a solely Jewish town -Christians too have lived there since its founding and Jews lived outside of Kazimierz- within Kazimierz there is a Jewish Quarter where the majority of Krakow's Jews lived and created their own unique
microcosm within Krakow. Once the Jewish Quarter was walled off and protected?/isolated?/separated from the rest of Kazimierz which really cultivated a sense of Jewish identity but also a sense of otherness from their Polish Christian neighbors. What remains of the Jewish Quarter have been restored very recently in the past 10-15 years from American/Jewish/Polish efforts. Only about 200 Jews remain in Krakow so much of the investments in reviving the Jewish Quarter come from outsiders. But interest is very strong and many joint efforts (Polish Jews, Polish Christians, Foreigners) are being made to revive, rebuild, and memorialize the culture which once flourished here.
We visited Synagogue Tempel (the progressive Synagogue purposefully built outside of the ghetto walls), Isaaks Synagogue, Old Synagogue, Remuh Synagogue (the only functioning synagogue now) and adjoining cementary.
Later, after running and Polish lesson, we met back up with the Berliners to see this gathering grounds for artists during the art nouveau movement. Since Krakow was a conquered city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire art nouveau was quickly introduced and adopted. They met in this quaint cafe off of Florianska Street where one would never think to look for it. Its decorated in dark forest green with rich wooden tables and chairs. They used to host cabare and satirical puppet shows here too. The owner, who retrospectively glorified himself as a patron of the arts, really just gave the artists paper and pen so that they would stop their "graffiti" on his café's walls.
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