Eagle Pharmacy
More background info: The pharmacy is called “Apteka Pod Orłem” in Polish and literally the name translates as ‘pharmacy under the eagle’, but it is usually simply referred to as the ‘Eagle Pharmacy’ in English.
It had been in existence since the early 20th century at this location. Not long before the beginning of
WWII with the
Nazi German invasion of
Poland, one Tadeusz Pankiewicz took over the pharmacy from his father. When in 1941 the Nazis established the
Kraków ghetto, the pharmacy was allowed to continue operating.
Before the ghetto was created some 3000 Poles were evicted to make room for the remaining ca. 16,000 Jews in Kraków (the rest of the once four times larger Jewish population of the city had by then already been expelled to the Reich, as “Ostarbeiter”, i.e. slave labourers within Germany or to forced-labour camps within Poland). Limited space and scarcity of food and other resources made life in the ghetto extremely difficult.
Tadeusz Pankiewicz was the only Polish ‘gentile’ (non-Jew) within the ghetto and he and his pharmacy assumed an important role, not just for dispensing medicines but also for the dissemination of news from outside the ghetto and also for some smuggling of papers, money and goods, as well as for the safekeeping of valuables and even for hiding people. The place became a kind of anchor for the ghetto inhabitants and a meeting place (especially for intellectuals).
Yet Pankiewicz had no means to stop the liquidation of the ghetto in March 1943, overseen by the infamous commandant of the Płaszów
concentration camp Amon Göth. Most Jewish ghetto inhabitants were sent to the
death camp of
Bełżec or
Auschwitz to be murdered and the remainder, deemed fit for work, ended up in
Płaszów.
After the war, Tadeusz Pankiewicz published his memoirs about the time of the ghetto in a book, released in 1947. Yet his pharmacy was first nationalized by the
communist regime in 1951 and closed down altogether in 1967. For a while it served as a bar. In 1983 Pankiewicz was awarded the title “Righteous Among the Nations” by
Yad Vashem (just like Oskar Schindler ten years later – see
Schindler factory) in recognition of his efforts to protect Jews during
WWII. Later that year the old pharmacy was elevated to the status of national memorial, and Pankiewicz attended the inaugural ceremony at the site.
Ten years after that Pankiewicz passed away in 1993 at the age of 84. Another ten years later the old pharmacy became a branch of the Historical Museum of Kraków. The present museum exhibition opened yet another ten years later in 2013.
Steven Spielberg, director of the 1993 movie “Schindler’s List” (in which the pharmacy featured) personally donated a good sum of money for the preservation of the old pharmacy. The same was done in 2002 by Polish film director Roman Polanski, who himself is a survivor of the Kraków ghetto (which he managed to escape as a boy in 1943).
Today the Eagle Pharmacy forms part of a trio of sites related to the times of the
Nazi terror in
Poland in
WWII, all three of which are run under the auspices of the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, the other two being the
Pomorska Street memorial and the exhibition at the
Schindler factory.
What there is to see: Before you can see anything, you have to obtain your ticket – from a different place than the entrance to the museum, namely from a desk inside the house next door (which is also where the museum’s administration office is housed). Armed with that ticket (or a combination ticket – see
below) you can then get admission to the museum proper.
The space in the former pharmacy is quite limited, which can be a problem when it gets busy. When I went in 2024 in mid-January I didn’t expect it to be so busy but I was wrong. In particular there was a fairly large guided-tour group who kept hogging the space of whole rooms while the guide delivered her narrative. So I was forced to explore other rooms first and come back once the group had moved on.
All material in the museum is bilingual in Polish and English in good translation quality. The museum uses a mix of traditional object, text and photo presentations as well as more modern video and interactive-screen
commodifications. It also follows that trend to “hide” some exhibits in drawers that you have to open in order to access their content. I must say I’m not a great fan of such “game” elements; I find them a distraction rather than an enhancement, but I realize it’s a trend in the name of interactiveness. Likewise the touchscreens/video screens. Yes, they do supply a wealth of extra information, but personally when I go to a museum I prefer its story being told straight rather than forcing me into yet more scrolling through computer screens – which is what I do so much at home anyway for my own research, so I don’t welcome so much of the same in a museum. But again I know I’m pushing against a pretty universal trend in contemporary museum commodification/design.
Anyway, what is there to see in the museum? First of all, once you’re through the door, you see what looks like a classic old-time pharmacy. This is largely a reconstruction, however, because very little of the authentic contents of the original pharmacy survived. The reconstruction is convincing, though. It does look pretty real (including the olde-worlde cash register).
To the left is a duo of shelves stacked with period medicines and between them a large blow-up of a black-and-white photo showing Tadeusz Pankiewicz with two of his female employees all in white lab coats standing outside the pharmacy.
Behind this is what used to be the “prescription room”, where medicines and ointments would have been prepared by hand as required. In the museum there is now a section on “recipes for survival”. Opening drawers you can find details of individuals’ various approaches. And there’s also one of those interactive screens.
Through an open doorway you next get to Pankiewicz’s former “duty room”, with a sofa bed and some other pieces of furniture, including the original desk from the old pharmacy. There’s also a first-edition copy of the memoirs Pankiewicz penned after the war, with some hand-written notes. In this room too are a couple of hats and items of clothing, presumably all once belonging to Pankiewicz. Moreover there’s a screen with black-and-white film footage of the old Pankiewicz recalling ghetto history (with English subtitles).
Yet another room was the “materials room”, i.e. where the stocks of the pharmacy used to be kept. The exhibition today uses this room mainly for introducing a number of personal stories of people connected to the pharmacy. There’s also a photo section with a focus on the
Holocaust, especially those
Kraków Jews murdered at
Bełżec.
Finally there’s the room that was the lab, with some glass lab apparatus on display that was used for handling hazardous materials. From the ceiling hangs a cluster of photos and text labels – another design element I found a bit forced. One display box contains the “Righteous Among the Nations” medal given to Tadeusz Pankiewicz in 1983 (see
above).
All in all, I can’t say that I particularly liked this museum. It was cramped and I found the presentation of the content over-commodified and some of the design elements unnecessary. Yet there is a lot to learn in here that isn’t much featured elsewhere. As such this museum is much more specialized and more narrowly focused than, say, the exhibitions at the
Schindler factory or
Pomorska Street.
Location: on the south-western corner of Bohaterów Getta Square (at No. 18) in the Podgórze district of
Kraków on the southern side of the Vistula River, ca. a mile and a half (2.5 km) south-east of the main city centre square.
Access and costs: a bit out of the centre but easy to reach by tram; not too expensive.
Details: To get from the centre of
Kraków to the square the museum is located on you can either walk it (ca. half an hour) or hop on a tram, e.g. line 3 or 24 e.g. from Teatr Słowackiego or Poczta Główna and get out at Plac Bohaterów Getta.
Opening times: Tuesday to Sunday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Mondays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.; closed every second Tuesday of the month. Last admission 30 minutes before closing.
Admission: 18 PLN (ca. 4 euro); free on Mondays.
Time required: I spent only about half an hour in this small museum, partly because I wasn’t all that fond of it and found it too crowded as well. But if you really want to read everything and get to the bottom of all the material on the interactive screens, you will need a lot longer in here.
Combinations with other dark destinations: Just outside the museum on Bohaterów Getta Square is that striking monument consisting of a set of ca. 30 metal chairs, neatly arranged equidistant from each other. These are to symbolize the liquidation of the ghetto when the
Nazis often threw furniture out of windows, sometimes together with elderly victims, and on to the streets outside. For photos see the gallery under the general
Kraków chapter. Given the gravity of what is commemorated here it is a little off-putting to see some tourists prancing about with these chairs for grinning selfies and snapshots … although I do admit that the arrangement of the chairs does invite creative photography and playing with perspective and bokeh.
A bit to the south-east of the square on Lwowska Street you can find a ca. 50 feet (15m) long stretch of preserved ghetto wall.
Within fairly easy walking distance is also the substantial museum inside the former
Schindler factory to the east of the ghetto square.
Quite a bit further south-east is the site of the former forced-labour and
concentration camp of
Płaszów, where many ghetto inhabitants eventually ended up.
Going in the other direction, crossing the river heading north, a short tram hop or walk takes you into the heart of the old Jewish quarter of Kazimierz with its synagogues, Jewish cemetery, Museum Galicia and a number of Jewish restaurants.
For more see under
Kraków in general.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: The rest of the Podgórze district is worth a wander in itself. Particularly noteworthy is the pretty neo-Gothic brick church of St Joseph’s with its iconic spire.
A small museum inside what used to be a pharmacy of this name that played a significant role in the time when the area it is located in in Podgórze, Kraków, was the city’s Jewish ghetto during the Holocaust in Poland.
Eagle pharmacy 1 - name in Polish above the entrance
Eagle pharmacy 2 - front desk and shelves with jars
Eagle pharmacy 3 - cash register
Eagle pharmacy 4 - more shelves and period photo
Eagle pharmacy 5 - meds
Eagle pharmacy 6 - screen and back-lit panel
Eagle pharmacy 7 - net curtain
Eagle pharmacy 8 - sofa and desk
Eagle pharmacy 9 - lab and hanging exhibits
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