The Forgotten Pharmacy: How Tadeusz Pankiewicz Defied the Nazis from Inside Krakow's Ghetto

Most visitors to Kraków know Schindler's Factory. Fewer know about the quiet hero who worked just a few hundred meters away, inside the ghetto walls rather than outside them. His name was Tadeusz Pankiewicz, and the pharmacy he ran at ul. Targowa 18 — now preserved as the Apteka Pod Orłem (Eagle Pharmacy Museum) — is one of the most quietly devastating places in the entire city.

If you visit only one off-the-beaten-path site during your time in Kraków, make it this one.

A Pharmacist Who Refused to Leave

When the German occupation authorities established the Kraków Ghetto in the Podgórze district in March 1941, they ordered all non-Jewish residents to relocate outside its walls. Pankiewicz, a Catholic Pole, petitioned the occupiers to let him stay and keep his pharmacy running. Astonishingly, they agreed — probably assuming a compliant pharmacist would be useful.

They miscalculated completely.

For three years, Pankiewicz's Apteka Pod Orłem became a lifeline. He supplied medicine at reduced or no cost to ghetto residents who couldn't afford it. He and his staff — three young women named Helena Krywaniuk, Aurelia Danek, and Irena Droździkowska — smuggled food, forged documents, and passed messages between people trapped inside and their families outside the walls. They provided sedatives to parents desperately trying to keep infants quiet during deportation round-ups, knowing that a crying child could mean death for an entire hiding family.

Pankiewicz documented everything he witnessed in meticulous notes, which he later published as a memoir: The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy. You can buy a Polish or English copy at the museum shop for around 45–55 PLN — it's one of the most important firsthand accounts of the ghetto's liquidation in March 1943, when the Nazis violently cleared Plac Bohaterów Getta (then called Plac Zgody) of its remaining inhabitants.

In 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Pankiewicz as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Visiting the Eagle Pharmacy Today

The museum is run by the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków and sits directly on Plac Bohaterów Getta, the same square where the deportations took place. The memorial of 70 oversized metal chairs filling the square outside — one for each thousand ghetto residents — makes the walk from the tram stop feel appropriately heavy before you even step inside.

Entrance costs 14 PLN (reduced ticket 8 PLN), and the permanent exhibition is intimate but extraordinarily well-curated. The original pharmacy counter, medicine drawers, and period furniture are preserved largely as they were. Multilingual audio guides are available for an extra 8 PLN and are absolutely worth it — they include recordings and testimonies that transform the objects in front of you from antiques into evidence.

Plan at least 90 minutes here. Unlike larger museums, this one rewards slow, careful attention. Read the wall texts. Look at the photographs. Stand at the window that looks out onto the square and let yourself imagine what Pankiewicz and his staff watched from that exact spot.

The museum is open Tuesday through Sunday, roughly 10:00–17:00 (hours shift seasonally, so check the mhk.pl website before you go). It's easily reached by tram lines 3, 9, 19, or 24 to the Plac Bohaterów Getta stop — about a 10-minute ride from the Rynek Główny.

The Broader Podgórze Story

While you're in the neighborhood, walk the remaining fragments of the ghetto wall on ul. Lwowska — a few original arched sections survive between apartment buildings, marked with a small plaque. Then continue to ul. Lipowa 4 for the Schindler's Factory Museum (book tickets online well in advance — it sells out days ahead). Together, these three sites form one of the most coherent and moving historical circuits in Central Europe.

Finish the afternoon at Stara Zajezdnia, a craft brewery in a converted tram depot on ul. Jana Dekerta 6, about a 10-minute walk away. A half-liter of their house lager runs around 16 PLN. Sometimes, after heavy history, a quiet beer in a beautiful space is the right way to process what you've seen.

Insider tip: Visit the Eagle Pharmacy on a weekday morning. Weekend afternoons can get crowded, and this is a place that genuinely benefits from silence.