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Krakow

 
Dictionary: Kra·ków or Crac·ow (krăk'ou, krä'kou, -kūf) pronunciation

A city of southern Poland on the Vistula River south-southwest of Warsaw. Founded in the eighth century A.D., it was the national capital from the 12th century to 1595. Population: 757,000.

 

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City (pop., 2005 est.: 757,430), southern Poland. Located on both sides of the upper Vistula River, it was the capital of a principality in 1138. After surviving a Mongol invasion in 1241, it was made the capital of a reunited Poland in 1320. Its importance diminished after the capital was moved to Warsaw in 1611. During the Partitions of Poland it came under Austrian rule. Returned to Poland in 1918, it was held by Germany during World War II. Rebuilt since the war, it is an industrial centre with a giant steelworks on the city's outskirts. Kraków is also a cultural centre. Its university was founded in 1364.

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Holocaust: Cracow
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(in Polish, Krakow), city in southern Poland. On the eve of World War II 60,000 Jews lived in Cracow, out of a total population of 250,000. During the first days of the war thousands of Jews fled from Cracow.

German troops occupied Cracow on September 6, 1939 and immediately began persecuting the city's Jews. In late October the Nazis made Cracow the capital of the Generalgouvernement; this made the persecution even worse for Cracow's Jews. Soon a Jewish committee was set up; it was declared to be a Judenrat on November 28. In early December the Germans carried out a terror action in which several synagogues were burnt down and much Jewish property was seized.

In May 1940 the Germans began expelling the Jews of Cracow to nearby towns in an effort to make the capital of the Generalgouvernement "free of Jews." By March 1941 some 40,000 Jews had been kicked out of their homes, and only 11,000 remained. During the expulsions, the Germans stripped the Jews of all their property. That same month, the German authorities established a Ghetto in the southern part of Cracow. On March 20 the ghetto was closed off with a wall and a barbed-wire fence. The remaining Cracow Jews were packed inside, as were several thousand Jews from nearby communities. By late 1941 about 18,000 Jews were imprisoned in the ghetto. They were subjected to terrible overcrowding and unsanitary conditions. In addition, the Germans installed several factories inside the ghetto so that they could take advantage of the cheap Jewish manpower.

Within the ghetto, several Jewish organizations were created to improve the awful conditions. Outstanding among them were the Jewish Social Self-Help Society and the Federation of Associations for the Care of Orphans.

On March 19, 1942 the Germans initiated a terror operation against the ghetto's intellectual class. During this Intelligenz Aktion, about 50 well known Jews were deported to their deaths at Auschwitz. At the end of May the Germans began deporting the rest of the ghetto population to Extermination Camps. The aktion began on May 28, and was carried out by the Gestapo, the regular police, and army units. During the operation, which lasted until June 8, 300 Jews were killed on the spot and 6,000 were deported to Belzec. Among them was the chairman of the Judenrat, Artur Rosenzweig, who had refused to collaborate with the Germans and was thus punished.

After the aktion the Judenrat was abolished and a "Kommissariat" was established instead. The area comprising the ghetto was decreased by half (this despite the fact that there were still 12,000 Jews living there). In late October, following the Kommissariat's refusal to collaborate with the Germans, the authorities began a second aktion, during which they deported 7,000 Jews to Belzec and Auschwitz and shot 700 on the spot. After this aktion the Germans further reduced the ghetto's area and divided the remaining part in two, one part for the working Jews, and the other for the rest of the prisoners.

In March 1943 the Germans transferred the 2,000 working Jews to the Plaszow camp, and then proceeded to liquidate the rest of the ghetto, murdering 700 Jews on the spot and deporting 2,300 to Auschwitz. Only a few hundred of the Jews who had been transferred to Plaszow survived the war.

Throughout its existence, several resistance organizations were active in the Cracow Ghetto. In October 1942 many of the groups united under one underground organization, called the Jewish Fighting Organization. The organization's leaders decided that instead of launching an uprising inside the ghetto, where space was limited, they would move the fight to the Polish side of Cracow. They managed to launch 10 operations outside the ghetto, most notably an attack on a cafe in the city center, in which 11 Germans were killed and 13 wounded. In late 1943 two of the underground leaders, Shimshon and Tova Draenger, were caught in the apartment of a man who smuggled Jews to Hungary. They apparently were executed by the Germans and the underground dissolved after their disappearance. (see also Resistance, Jewish.)

 
Kraków (kră'kou, Pol. krä'kūf), Ger. Krakau, city (1994 est. pop. 751,500), capital of Małopolskie prov., S Poland, on the Vistula. A river port and industrial center, it has varied manufactures including metals, machinery, textiles, and chemicals. One of E Europe's largest iron and steel plants is near the city. Founded c.700 and made a bishopric c.1000, Kraków became (1320) the residence of the kings of Poland. The Kraków fire (1595) caused the transfer (1596) of the royal residence to Warsaw, but the kings were still crowned and buried in Kraków until the 18th cent. The city passed to Austria in the third partition of Poland (1795) and was included (1809) in the grand duchy of Warsaw. In 1815 the Congress of Vienna made the city and its vicinity into the republic of Kraków, a protectorate of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, and in 1846 it was included in Austria. The city reverted to Poland in 1919. Kraków has many historic landmarks and national relics. Jagiellonian Univ., founded in 1364 by Casimir the Great, has long been a leading European center of learning; Copernicus was one of its students. The city has some 50 old churches, many of which contain works of art. Standing on a hill, the Wawel, are the royal castle (rebuilt 16th cent. in Italian Renaissance style) and the Gothic cathedral (rebuilt in the 14th cent.), which contains the tombs of great Poles. The Rynek [market] square is noted for the Church of Our Lady (13th cent.), which has carvings by Veit Stoss; the 14th-century cloth hall; and the remaining tower of the 14th-century town hall.


Weather: Krakow
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AccuWeather® 5-Day Forecast

Monday HI:  63°F / 17°C
LO: 42°F / 5°C
Tuesday HI:  56°F / 13°C
LO: 34°F / 1°C
Wednesday HI:  43°F / 6°C
LO: 28°F / -2°C
Thursday HI:  48°F / 8°C
LO: 36°F / 2°C
Friday HI:  48°F / 8°C
LO: 37°F / 2°C
Last updated November 30, 2009 13:49 (EST)

Dialing Code: The telephone dialing code for: Krakow, Poland
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The country code is: 48
The city code is: 12


Local Time: Krakow, Poland
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It is 9:10 PM, November 30, in Krakow (Poland).

Maps: Krakow
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Translations: Krakow
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - Krakow

Deutsch (German)
n. - Krakau

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮קראקוב‬


 
 

 

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Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.  Read more
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