The hidden doorway of Ulica Rękawka: a quiet witness to Kraków’s wartime past
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| This tiny door on Ulica Rękawka has a dark, hidden past |
In the heart of Kraków’s Podgórze district, a tiny, low-set door on Ulica Rękawka sits quietly—its small frame and weathered appearance is a silent reminder of one of the darkest chapters in the city’s history. This discreet entrance once served as the only access to Roman Polanski’s childhood home during the Nazi occupation, when his family, along with many others, were imprisoned within the confines of the Kraków Ghetto.
Originally, the building’s main doorway faced Ulica Parkowa. But as part of the brutal containment measures imposed by the Nazis, that entrance was bricked up since it opened out onto a non-ghetto area. Residents were forced to use this miniature side door, a change that symbolised the shrinking freedoms and increasing isolation of Jewish families. The door’s scale when we see it now is low, tight, and tucked away and mirrors the cramped, concealed lives endured and tried to survive behind it.
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| The entrance to the building on the right on Ulica Parkowa which was bricked up during ghetto times |
A glimpse into the Kraków Ghetto
Established in March 1941, the Kraków Ghetto was one of several urban ghettos created by the Nazis to segregate and control the Jewish population. Located in Podgórze, across the Vistula River from Kraków’s Old Town, the ghetto housed over 15,000 Jews in an area previously home to just 3,000 residents. Families were crammed into overcrowded apartments, often with multiple households sharing a single room.
The ghetto was enclosed by a wall shaped like Jewish tombstones—an ominous and vile architectural choice that underscored the regime’s cruelty. Daily life was marked by hunger, fear, and forced labor. Deportations to concentration camps began in 1942, and by March 1943, the ghetto was liquidated. Most of its inhabitants were sent to Auschwitz or the nearby Płaszów Concentration Camp.
Roman Polanski’s childhood in the ghetto
Although he is a controversial figure, there is no doubt that Polanski's early childhood was traumatic. Roman Polanski was a very young child when the ghetto was established. His family, like many others, was forced to abandon their previous home and move into the overcrowded district. Polanski’s father was later sent to Mauthausen concentration camp, and his pregnant mother perished in Auschwitz. Roman himself managed to escape the ghetto before its final liquidation, surviving the war by hiding with a Catholic family in the countryside.
One of his most haunting memories from this time occurred on the street near this tiny door of his ghetto home. As he later recounted in interviews and documentaries, he witnessed a Nazi officer shoot an elderly Jewish woman in the back. The blood, he said, “splattered like water from a drinking fountain.” Terrified, he ran and hid behind a staircase. That moment—raw, sudden, and brutal—was his first direct encounter with the horror of the Holocaust. It left an indelible mark on his psyche and shaped his understanding of violence and survival.
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| Hard to imagine the horrors this little doorway witnessed in the days of the ghetto |
This doorway on Ulica Rękawka was the threshold to that chapter of his life—a place of confinement, fear, and resilience. It’s not just a physical remnant; it’s a portal into the lived experience of a child, like many thousands of children in war, navigating unimaginable trauma.
A doorway that speaks volumes
Today, the door remains a quiet architectural witness. It’s easy to overlook, yet impossible to forget once its story is known. For historians, educators, and those tracing Jewish heritage in Poland, it offers a rare, tangible link to the past.
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| Roman Polanski's ghetto home tiny entrance |
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