Eagle Pharmacy
The Eagle Pharmacy Museum is located on the southwest edge of the Bohaterów Getta Square, under number 18 (formerly Maly Rynek, then Plac Zgody) in Kraków, Poland.
Apteka Pod Orłem w Krakowie | |
Branch of Historical Museum of Kraków | |
Established | 1910 |
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Location | Kraków, Poland |
Coordinates | 50.04625°N 19.95414°W |
Type | History museum |
Manager | Monika Bednarek |
Director | Michał Niezabitowski |
Curator | Monika Bednarek |
Public transit access | Miejskie Przedsiębiorstwo Komunikacyjne w Krakowie how to get there, see external links |
Website | www |
Since 1910, its proprietor was Jozef Pankiewicz and after him Tadeusz Pankiewicz (21 November 1908 – 5 November 1993), his son who ran it since 1933. Before World War II, it was one of the four pharmacies in Podgórze district. Its clients were both Polish and Jewish residents of the district. A frequent customer was, e.g., "Bikkur Cholim" charity.[1]
On March 1941, the Germans established a ghetto in Podgórze for Kraków's Jews, Pankiewicz's pharmacy was the only one within its borders and its proprietor was the only Pole with rights to stay in it.
The Jews that lived in the ghetto chose the pharmacy as the place for conspiratorial meetings. Among them were: writer Mordechai Gebirtig, painter Abraham Neumann, Dr Julian Aleksandrowicz, neurologist Dr Bernhard Bornstein, Dr Leon Steinberg and pharmacists: Emanuel Herman, Roman Imerglück. Soon it also became a source of various resources and medicaments, which helped in avoiding deportation: hair dyes used for rejuvenating the appearance, luminal (fenobarbital) used to calm children while hidden, smuggled in luggage beyond ghetto.[2]
During the bloody displacement at the Plac Zgody in 1942, Pharmacy personnel issued free medicines and dressings while its recesses areas were used as shelters for saving Jews from deportation to extermination camps.
Pankiewicz and his assistants Irena Drozdzikowska, Aurelia Danek and Helena Krywaniuk were liaisons between Jews in the ghetto and beyond it, passing the information and smuggling food. They also were depositaries of valuables entrusted to them by deported Jews in the last moments before leaving the ghetto.[3]
References
- Museum's History at the Museum's Home page (in Polish)
- Photos of Pharmacy Under the Eagle. "Photos of Pharmacy under the Eagle.", Magiczny Kraków.
- Pharmacy Under the Eagle. "About History of Pharmacy under the Eagle.", Magiczny Kraków.