Created by Peter Belin, Hanwen Tang & Yang Lu
Introduction
Our project talks about the Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy, and aims to make this not too well known topic more well known because it is interesting and powerful. One man saved over one thousand Jewish lives while he and his employees risked their own in a 3 year period which shall never be forgotten.
The Undesirables
The Holocaust… A very dark period in history during which six million Jews and others labeled “Undesirables” were killed systematically. During this period hundreds of ghettos were established to separate the “Undesirables” from the “pure-blooded” Aryan Germans. There were many uprisings and acts of courage in some ghettos. One of these acts of courage saved thousands of Jewish lives, in the Kraków Ghetto, located in Kraków, Poland.
Tadeusz Pankiewicz was born in Sambir, Poland, in November 1908. He followed his father in becoming a pharmacist and opened a pharmacy in Kraków, Poland, called the Under the Eagle Pharmacy(Apteka Pod Orlem). When the Kraków Ghetto opened in 1941, Pankiewicz was told to move his business to the Aryan side. He refused, and later in a memoir documented two main reasons why: he did not think Germany was going to win the war, and he realized that the people in the Kraków Ghetto desperately needed his help, and it was his duty as a pharmacist to stay. So after going through a long process of proving he was not Jewish or had any Jewish ancestry, he eventually was allowed to stay in the newly established Ghetto.
The Nazi’s treatment of the Jews got more and more brutal as the war went on longer and longer. From the window of his pharmacy, located in the Kraków Ghetto, Pankiewicz could see many atrocities the SS enacted on the Jewish people. He started to realize that the Jews were not really enemies, in contrast, they seemed like victims. Pankiewicz already was not too fond of Germany’s actions and started connecting with some Jews in the ghetto, and had great empathy for them. He realized that what the Nazis were doing was not right. (Insert the Quote/Testimonial) here, add transition)
Between 1941 and 1943, Pankiewicz helped out the Jews in the Kraków Ghetto in many ways. He offered shelter to Jews who were hiding from the SS and were set to be deported, gave medicine and tended to the unhealthy free of charge, smuggled food and medicine for Jews, and provided sedatives to keep Jews calm during raids. Hair dye was provided to make older people appear younger to evade deportation. Pankiewicz even argued with officers to keep some Jews from getting deported, an amazing act of courage that could have gotten him killed. The pharmacy also served as a headquarters for an underground system where Pankiewicz, his employees, and others would smuggle food and other materials to the Jews, risking their lives. He saved over a thousand lives in these two years. (insert testimony somewhere)
One day in March 1943, as Tadeusz Pankiewicz was arriving for work, he wasn’t allowed in as the Jews were being relocated. He had heard these rumors about this process but didn’t know when it would actually happen. The Ghetto was being “liquidated”. About 2,000 deemed fit to work were taken to the Kraków-Płaszów labor camp, a camp nearby with harsh conditions. The remaining who were unfit to work, around 5,000, were brutally and mercilessly murdered in the streets of the ghetto or taken on train carts to Auschwitz-Birkenau, a death camp also located in Poland, or an extermination camp called Bełżec.
The SS also coldly manipulated the Jews in the ghetto. Parents were told to leave their children behind and that they would be cared for. In reality, they were crammed into orphanages and then heartlessly killed. During this time, Pankiewicz, even in the last moments of the ghetto, managed to get into his pharmacy, and from there, was still hiding Jews set to be killed or deported, risking his life to keep the remaining Jews safe, and treating the sick. The Kraków Ghetto was fully liquidated around January 1945 and was destroyed. As the war started to conclude, many survivors of the ghetto started to tell the story of the Man in the Kraków Pharmacy who saved their lives. The pharmacy stayed open and even served as a restaurant for workers at a nearby labor camp until the end of the war, with Pankiewicz providing sausage, liquor, and other things for the workers.
As The Second World War came to an end, Pankiewicz started writing a book, titled The Kraków Ghetto Pharmacy, which he published in 1947. The book documented the horrors he witnessed during his time in the ghetto. When asked in an interview why he wrote the book, Pankiewicz replied that he wanted to inform non-Jews and others about what life was really like inside the ghetto. An excerpt of his book describes the feelings the Jews were going through: “The faint hope of survival which flickered in the soul of every ghetto resident, this hope worked miracles. It gave superhuman strength and power, and told them to grit their teeth and swallow bitter doses of humiliation. The urge to survive, not the fear of death, was the dominant trait”.
Later in the same interview, Pankiewicz acknowledges that the Jewish people had built him into a small legend. However, he said he “only did what one human should do for other humans who were in a tragic situation”. While Pankiewicz might not have considered himself a hero, the men, women, and children whose suffering he eased and lives they saved very well did. Pankiewicz met up with many he saved after the war, and many Jews continued telling his story. He continued to be a pharmacist, with his pharmacy open until 1967. In 1983, it was turned into a museum that honors the events that happened in the Kraków Ghetto. (insert testimony on why he wrote it after (life inside the ghetto)
Tadeusz Pankiewicz was awarded the “Righteous Among the Nations” award by Yad Vashem in 1983. He is remembered as a hero for his brave acts of courage, which saved many lives and brightened the worlds of many Jews who believed there was no hope left. Pankiewicz’s empathy for the Jews and immense courage made him one of the heroes who stood against the Nazis. He provided not only health but also social, spiritual, mental, and physical needs to his patients. Pankiewicz was a remarkable figure, shining bright in a time of darkness and hopelessness.
He did what was right and healed when many were harmed. His story continues to inspire others to take risks and help others, making him an upstander and the type of person society needs.
Bibliography & Resources
- www.ifcj.org/news/stand-for-israel-blog/pharmacist-of-the-krakow-ghetto.
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1004087
- www.gedenkstaette-stille-helden.de/en/silent-heroes/rescue-attempts/the-ghetto-pharmacy.
- https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/the-gentlemanly-chemist-whose-pharmacy-became-a-refuge-for-ghetto-jews-1566
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraków_Ghetto
Artifact Statement
The Man of Healing
Our artifact is called “The Man of Healing”. It is a memorial honoring the events that happened in the Kraków Ghetto in Poland and the courageous actions of a man named Tadeusz Pankiewicz who owned a pharmacy in the ghetto. In the ghetto, Jews were mercilessly murdered, through atrocious ways such as getting cruelly shot in the streets. Pankiewicz knew something was not right. The Nazis had been saying the Jews were enemies, but in contrast, now they seemed like victims. He knew he had to take action. Over the course of about 2 years, Pankiewicz courageously risked his life over and over again to supply the Jews in the ghetto with medicine and food and gave them treatment. He even hid some Jews who were set to be deported to concentration camps in his pharmacy. During this time, Pankiewicz saved over 2 thousand lives, both directly and indirectly.
As we started to brainstorm on our artifact we settled on a depiction of a shelf in the Pharmacy. At first, we wanted two neat shelves, but we ended up doing a more abstract ordering of shelves because it represented the situation well as not neat but messy and having many layers. Using the idea of a pharmacy, we decided that we would house pill bottles with pictures inside them to depict the events. The simplicity of this also encourages the viewer to think deeper about the photos of the people. Additionally there are 2 syringes, labeled with Pankeiwicz and his employees, injected into a small wooden plate labeled hope. We initially only used the syringes but figured it was not enough and could have many interpretations so we added the hope plate so that what the syringes represented and was doing was more clear. These syringes and the hope plate show how Pankiewicz and his employees were constantly injecting small doses of hope into the Kraków Ghetto residents, which kept them going and pushed them to fight to stay alive. In the bottom left corner, a first aid kit that is open with many bandages inside.
The eerie light above the box shows how these bandages healed and brought light in a time where there was a lot of darkness and bleakness. Pill bottles lined in chronological order from left to right show the events in Pankiewicz’s life, from helping out in the pharmacy until he was years before his death. 3 pill bottles show the amount of years Pankeiwicz helped out in his pharmacy. The remaining two show later life and the time he spent to write his memoir, The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy, documenting the events that occurred in the ghetto. Finally, a Star of David wrapped in gauze reinforces the idea of how the pharmacist helped the Jews and healed them, not just physically, but mentally too.
Our lights are put in a way so that every object in the shelves are all eerily lit, because this event was a small act of courage that sparked hope and light but there were still many dark events during this time. Our artifact is meant to spark two major feelings: a solemn mood over the atrocities that happened in the ghetto and awe of Pankiewicz’s brave actions that saved many lives.
We want our audience to remember this moment, but more importantly his actions as an upstander, and strive to be like him, and tell his story, so that Tadeusz Pankiewicz’s legacy may live on forever.
Bibliography & Resources
- www.ifcj.org/news/stand-for-israel-blog/pharmacist-of-the-krakow-ghetto.
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn1004087
- www.gedenkstaette-stille-helden.de/en/silent-heroes/rescue-attempts/the-ghetto-pharmacy.
- https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/the-gentlemanly-chemist-whose-pharmacy-became-a-refuge-for-ghetto-jews-1566
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraków_Ghetto
Explore our Gallery of Images
Personal Reflections
A Lasting Memory
~Hanwen Tang, Class of 2025
I am Hanwen Tang, and my main role in this project was doing all the writing and some planning along with helping out with the artifact. The artist statement, a very big chunk of the script, and the testimonial finding was all things that I wrote and did, and I also helped out with planning out the documentary, organizing our sources, and printing out things for our artifact. The major theme of my experience was planning. As a group with only three people, with many tasks to complete, there was a lot of planning involved on how we completed them and how to split up tasks. We decided that the documentary would be prioritized first with Yang and I working on the documentary and finishing it while Peter worked mainly on the artifact with Yang and I occasionally stepping in to help. Because we had two people working on the documentary we were able to finish it quite fast. Our plans had worked and all 3 of us could focus on the artifact, which is what we did up to the last minute. Organizing our Google Drive folders and planning our 2-3 weeks of work made it easier for us, and so therefore the theme of planning is what made us successful.
This project has helped me understand how important it is to plan everything neatly. With only 3 members, we had to be efficient in getting work done and knowing what to do on any given day. I learned how to manage things and make plans with my peers. As the deadline creeped closer and closer our plans got more and more important as we knew that we had to work harder and know who did what to avoid mix up, be efficient, and finish as quickly as possible while maintaining a non-rushed/sloppy quality. What was hard was getting the artifact done in time because originally we only had one person working on it. In our free time, we worked on it as much as possible so we managed to get it done! I also grew as a researcher and writer throughout the project.
Final Thoughts…
Yang Lu, Class of 2025
I’m Yang Lu, an 8th grader whose holocaust project is the Krakow Pharmacy. Originally my role in the group was a documentary person and I mostly stayed on that track. I was responsible for most of the effects and the construction of the documentary. Our group only had three people so we had to prioritize either the artifact or documentary more and we chose the documentary. Me and Hanwen were able to finish our script extremely quickly but Peter wasn’t as fast as he was alone in building. I had to pivot to helping the building of the artifact or else we wouldn’t be able to finish on time.
This project helped me learn how to hustle better. We were a little behind towards the end with our artifact and we needed to finish it in a day or so. Our group was very focused at that time and we were able to get the artifact done way faster compared to when we started. I also had to finish the documentary which I couldn’t rely on anybody else on because iMovies cannot be worked on concurrently. I struggled a lot on making the movie due to my overall lack of experience and the clunky nature of working on an iPad.
Despite all the hurdles though, I was able to finish the project strong with a successful documentary that you can enjoy in our museum exhibit.
Leave a Reply