Powerful, Potent, and Poignant Schindler’s Factory

Krakow’s fabled Oskar Schindler’s Factory of Enameled Vessel has been turned into a modern museum devoted to the wartime experiences in Krakow under the five-year Nazi occupation during World War II from 1939 to 1945.  It highlights prewar Krakow, the Jewish ghetto, the sorrows and terrors of living under German occupation, the resistance movement, and the Soviet capture of the city. The museum takes up the sprawling administration building of the defunct plant at 4 Lipowa street, in the city’s grim industrial district of Zablocie on the right bank of the Wisla river. Exhibitions combine period artifacts, photos and documents with multimedia and set-piece arrangements to create a full-immersion experience.

Each transition from one period of time during the Nazi occupation to another was beautifully done with music, sculpture, art work, artifacts…it was like stepping into the transition.  I tried to instill this with the order of the slides (the order they appeared in the museum starting with the gas masks) and the juxtaposition of some of the exhibits–the every day toys mixed with the evil puppets. 

Near the end you step uncertainly unto a rubber unstable walkway into a stark hallway with a white rag backdrop and a black corridor symbolizing the cruelty and horror of the war. 

And then you step into the Room of Choices–a rotunda filled with music and rotating columns of Hebrew and Polish writing.  The words placed on the rotating cylinders describe the attitudes of non-action and lack of empathy.  Situated further is the room of white and black books where you can read about the ethical choices of the people of Krakow–both good and bad. 

These exhibits evoke an experiential, physiological, and behavioral emotion to the stimuli we’ve experienced throughout the museum and the juxtaposition of attitudes help the visitor reflect on: How would I behave in such a situation?    Powerful, potent and poignant.

Atomosphere is everything.