Jewish Pharmacy in Kraków

More than two-hundred-sixty mainly Jewish names shown below have been extracted from the book Apteka w Getcie Krakowskim (Pharmacy in the Kraków Ghetto). This book was originally written in Polish by Tadeusz Pankiewicz and was later translated into Hebrew by Miriam Akavia (also from Kraków). The book was published in Israel in 1985 by Yad Vashem.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz (1908 – 1993) was a Polish Roman Catholic pharmicist whose pharmacy, Apteka pod Orłem, happened to be located inside the Kraków Ghetto. Rather than move his pharmacy, at the behest of the Nazis, to a site outside the ghetto, he remained in the ghetto where he catered to the needs of the Jews. Tadeusz supplied scarce medications, often free of charge, to ghetto residents. He also, along with his staff, provided tranquilizers to keep fretful children quiet who would otherwise have revealed hiding places during Gestapo raids. At great risk to himself, Tadeusz permitted his pharmacy to serve as a meeting place for the ghetto intelligentsia and as a hub of underground activity. Pan Pankiewicz and his staff undertook clandestine operations; smuggled food and information; and offered shelter to Jews who were about to be deported to the camps. Wikipedia offers more to read at Tadeusz Pankiewicz.

(Name extraction and translation by Lili Haber)

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