On Ghetto Heroes Square in Kraków’s Podgórze district stands a modest building that played an extraordinary role during the German occupation. Known as the Pharmacy Under the Eagle (Apteka Pod Orłem), it was the only pharmacy permitted to operate inside the Kraków Ghetto between 1941 and 1943. During those years, it became a place where everyday professional duty intersected with moral courage.
The history of the pharmacy is inseparable from the history of the Kraków Ghetto and the wider system of persecution imposed on Jewish communities under Nazi rule, as documented in Holocaust research by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
A Pharmacy Inside the Ghetto
When the Kraków Ghetto was sealed in March 1941, most non-Jewish residents were ordered to leave the area. Tadeusz Pankiewicz, the Polish owner of the pharmacy located on what was then Zgody Square, was offered relocation as well. He refused. As an ethnic Pole who had owned the pharmacy before the war, he was granted permission to remain and continue operating his business within the ghetto walls.
The pharmacy stood directly opposite a German police post. Its continued existence depended on daily contact with the occupation authorities and constant exposure to danger. Despite this, Pankiewicz and his assistants – Irena Drozdzikowska, Helena Krywaniuk, and Aurelia Danek – transformed the pharmacy into a discreet refuge for ghetto residents.
Help Beyond Medicine
Officially, the Pharmacy Under the Eagle provided medicines. In reality, its role went far beyond pharmaceutical work. During German round-ups and raids, people hid among the shelves, sometimes holding small children. To prevent discovery, Pankiewicz risked his life by administering sedatives to calm terrified children and elderly patients.
Because the pharmacy staff were among the few non-Jews allowed to cross the ghetto boundaries, they used this privilege to smuggle food, letters, and essential supplies into the sealed district. Information from outside the ghetto circulated through the pharmacy, which functioned as an informal communication point in a place cut off from the rest of the city.
What many residents sought there was not only physical help but also a moment of normal human contact – a quiet conversation or silent acknowledgment of shared fear. In a space designed for dehumanisation, the pharmacy preserved fragments of dignity.
Witness to Liquidation
From the windows of the pharmacy, Pankiewicz directly witnessed the liquidation of the Kraków Ghetto in March 1943. Mass deportations, executions, and the destruction of the ghetto unfolded on the square outside. These events marked the violent end of a community that had existed in Kraków for centuries.
After the war, Pankiewicz recorded his experiences in the memoir The Kraków Ghetto Pharmacy (Apteka w getcie krakowskim), one of the most important firsthand accounts of daily life inside the ghetto. His testimony remains a key historical source for understanding the mechanisms of terror and the small acts of resistance that took place within them.
Tadeusz Pankiewicz and Moral Choice
Born in Kraków in 1908, Tadeusz Pankiewicz was a graduate of the Jagiellonian University and a trained pharmacist. Before the war, his pharmacy served the local residents of Podgórze. The decision to remain in the ghetto area in 1941 was not an act of impulse but a conscious choice made with full awareness of the risks.
Throughout the ghetto’s existence, he provided medicines free of charge, hid people during raids, and used his contacts to pass information and assistance to those facing deportation. Helping Jews in occupied Poland was punishable by death, not only for the helper but also for their family members. Despite this, Pankiewicz continued his work until the ghetto was destroyed.
For his actions, he was later recognised as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. His life illustrates how individual decisions could retain moral meaning even within a system designed to eliminate it.
The Museum Today
Since 1983, the former pharmacy building has functioned as a museum, now part of the Museum of Kraków. The exhibition combines preserved interiors with documentary materials, testimonies, and photographs, presenting both the personal story of Pankiewicz and the broader history of the Kraków Ghetto.
Today, the Pharmacy Under the Eagle forms an integral part of the city’s historical landscape, closely connected with nearby sites such as Schindler’s Factory and the wider narrative of the German occupation of Kraków. Its permanent exhibition offers insight into everyday life under extreme oppression and the forms of quiet resistance that emerged within it, as also reflected in the permanent exhibition at Schindler’s Factory.
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