Cracow: Schindler’s Story Guided Tour Kazimierz & Ghetto

Discover the true story behind Schindler’s List on a guided walking route through real locations where Kraków’s Jewish history and cinema intersect—across authentic streets, courtyards, and neighborhoods.

Highlights:

• Start outside Oskar Schindler’s Factory, where history and film converge

• Explore Podgórze, site of the Nazi German ghetto during WWII

• Walk through Kazimierz, the center of prewar Jewish life

• Learn the real story of Oskar Schindler and those he helped save

• Visit authentic filming and historical locations linked to Schindler’s List

Understand the transition from everyday life to persecution, survival, and memory

Learn how Oskar Schindler used his factory, social position, and personal risk to protect Jewish workers during the Holocaust.

Itinerary:

Podgórze Ghetto /  1h / walk by

The tour begins in front of Schindler’s Factory on Lipowa Street. Without entering the site, your guide explains how Oskar Schindler turned his enamelware factory into a place of refuge, using employment as protection against deportation and death. This introduction sets the historical foundation for both the real events and their cinematic portrayal.

The walk continues into Podgórze, the location of the Nazi German ghetto. Along Tarnowskiego Street, see where the iconic scene of the girl in the red coat was filmed. This moment opens a deeper discussion about symbolism, Schindler’s moral awakening, and the role of film in shaping Holocaust memory.

Crossing the Piłsudski Bridge—once a boundary between two worlds—the guide explains forced relocations, smuggling, and the brutal separation between Jewish life in Kazimierz and imprisonment in the ghetto.

Kazimierz Jewish Quarter / 1h  / walk by

The route continues to Józefa Street 12, where powerful scenes of resettlement and hiding during the ghetto liquidation were filmed in original courtyards and passages. On Ciemna Street, hear the story behind the filmed escape of Poldek Pfefferberg—a moment of fear, survival, and quick thinking. At the junction of Dajwór and Na Przejściu Streets, see the location of the symbolic ghetto gate built for the film, representing the forced passage from freedom into confinement. Walking through preserved streets, learn how Kazimierz was emptied of its Jewish population during the occupation—and how decades later it became a stand-in for the destroyed ghetto.

The tour concludes in Kazimierz, once the vibrant heart of Jewish life in Kraków, ending on Szeroka Street. Surrounded by historic synagogues, your guide introduces the district’s prewar community and explains why Spielberg chose Kazimierz to recreate scenes from the wartime ghetto.

Meeting point: Lipowa 4, 32-051 Krakow, Poland.  Meet your guide in front of the main entrance to the Schindler’s Factory Museum, on the right-hand side. They will hold an excursions.city sign. (click to go to the Google maps)  

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