The krakow ghetto
German authorities
created the Jewish ghetto in Krakow under the Nazi occupation on March 3, 1941 as a
compulsory dwelling place for the city's Jews. On the order of Dr Otto Wachter,
the district gubernator, the central part of Podgorze borough was closed off and all its gentile
residents expelled to make room for some 17,000 Jews who were allowed to
remained in the then capital of a German dependency made of the rump of Poland
and called General-Gouvernement. The rest of the 65,000-strong prewar Jewish
population of Krakow had been relocated earlier to Poland's lesser cities,
towns, and villages.