The ghetto, or the Jewish residential quarter (as it was officially referred to), was established on March 3, 1941. Located in a poor part of the district of Podgórze, the ghetto contained 320 houses.
Previously inhabited by 3,000 people, the ghetto now housed 15,000 residents. By the autumn of 1941, the ghetto population numbered over 20,000 people.
When Ed returned to Kraków, his mother and sisters were living in a one-room apartment in the ghetto. Listen as he describes the living conditions he and his family were subjected to under the new laws.
It was not uncommon for two or three families to share one room. Many of the houses and apartments in the ghetto were of poor quality and dilapidated. Some houses had collective bathrooms.
Streets leading outside the ghetto were enclosed with a wall shaped to look like Jewish tombstones, and four gates led to the ghetto. The ground-floor windows of houses overlooking the Aryan (non-Jewish) side were bricked up and gates opening to the Aryan side were locked.