Apteka pod Orłem

What to expect

The Eagle Pharmacy (Apteka pod Orłem) on plac Bohaterów Getta is a branch of the Museum of Krakow set up in the very rooms where, from 1941 to 1943, the only pharmacy of the Krakow ghetto operated. It was run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist who refused to leave the sealed district and, together with his staff, helped its inhabitants: supplying medicines, passing messages across the wall, hiding people during the deportation round-ups. For this he was honoured as Righteous Among the Nations.

The exhibition recreates the interior of the pre-war pharmacy: furniture, drawers and apothecary vessels that now hold documents, photographs and witness accounts. This is a small museum in every sense, a handful of modest rooms where the story is built from details rather than scale. Do not expect a large narrative exhibition like the nearby Schindler’s Factory; the power of this place lies in the authenticity of the address and in the concrete example of one person’s conduct in the face of the Holocaust. Most visitors leave in silence.

Visiting in practice

A visit usually takes under an hour, and because the rooms are small you may wait briefly at busy times. A standard ticket costs 22 PLN, reduced 16 PLN; on Wednesdays entry is free, with tickets available online at bilety.muzeumkrakowa.pl or at the door while they last. The branch is open Wednesday to Sunday, 9:00 to 17:00, with last entry 30 minutes before closing; it is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays, and the museum has announced an additional closure on 15 August. The pharmacy combines naturally with the other memorial sites of Podgórze in a single walk.

Getting there

The pharmacy stands on plac Bohaterów Getta in Podgórze, the former plac Zgody, where people were assembled for deportation during the liquidation of the ghetto; today the square’s memorial of empty chairs recalls those events. From the centre, the simplest route is a tram along Starowiślna street across the Powstańców Śląskich bridge to the plac Bohaterów Getta stop. On foot from Kazimierz, the walk over the Bernatek footbridge takes about ten minutes.

Nearby

A few minutes’ walk away is Oskar Schindler’s Enamel Factory with its exhibition on Krakow under occupation, and right next to it MOCAK, the museum of contemporary art. Many visitors treat the pharmacy as the Krakow complement to a visit to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Oświęcim. On the Podgórze riverbank stands Cricoteka, the centre documenting the art of Tadeusz Kantor.