Poland: Kraków – Schindler’s Factory

A Wet Morning in Kraków

The day began under a low, featureless sky. A steady drizzle blanketed Kraków, the sort that is more insistent than dramatic, and which will soak you through if you’re not properly dressed. Fortunately, we were prepared. The apartment had everything we needed—coats, umbrellas, sensible shoes—so there was no panicked search or early trip to the shops. We left at a measured pace, dry and ready for the day ahead.

Arrival at Schindler’s Factory

Our destination was the Schindler Factory Museum, situated in the Podgórze district, not far from the area that was once Kraków’s Jewish quarter. I had purchased tickets online some days earlier, which turned out to be a prudent decision. A crowd had already formed by the time we arrived, and several people were milling about in hope of picking up spare tickets at the entrance—few seemed successful.

The building itself is modest in appearance. Once the site of the Deutsche Emailwarenfabrik, an enamelware factory, it is best known today for its wartime owner, Oskar Schindler. Inside, the premises now contain two museums: the Museum of Contemporary Art, which we decided to skip, and the Historical Museum of the City of Kraków, more commonly referred to as the Schindler Factory Museum. While Schindler’s story is certainly part of the exhibition, the museum is really a broader exploration of Kraków during the Nazi occupation from 1939 to 1945.

The Early Days of Occupation

The exhibition begins with a look at Kraków before the war—a thriving, diverse, and industrious city. Photographs, film reels, and various documents give a strong sense of a place that was modern and full of life. That atmosphere quickly darkens as the timeline moves to 1 September 1939: the date of the German invasion of Poland. The German army entered Kraków almost immediately, and the effects were swift and severe. New laws, racial segregation, and surveillance became everyday facts of life. What was once a free city soon became a place of fear and control.

It was in this environment that Oskar Schindler arrived. A Sudeten German and a member of the Nazi Party, he was a man of charisma and ambition, but also of flexible principles. He acquired the enamelware factory and, through a combination of shrewdness and luck, began to expand its operations. One key move was the shift to producing ammunition shells, which made the factory strategically important to the German war effort. This in turn gave Schindler certain privileges—chief among them, permission to employ Jewish workers.

Work, Survival, and Resistance

Initially, only a few dozen Jewish workers were employed at the factory. By 1944, that number had exceeded a thousand. Conditions were difficult. Many of the workers, especially the women, handled dangerous chemicals and worked long hours under poor safety standards. All of this took place under the constant threat of arrest or deportation, and yet, working for Schindler was one of the better outcomes available.

In 1943, the Kraków ghetto was dismantled. The remaining Jews were sent to the Płaszów labour camp, roughly ten kilometres away. Schindler’s workers were among them, and they began making the journey to and from the camp each day. Eventually, Schindler secured permission to build a sub-camp on the grounds of his factory. Conditions remained harsh, but this reduced the exposure to the worst of Płaszów’s brutal regime.

In 1944, as the tide of the war turned and the Soviet Army moved westward, Płaszów became a full concentration camp. This shift brought Schindler’s sub-camp under direct SS control. Many prisoners elsewhere were executed or forced into death marches as the Nazis began shutting down their network of camps. In response, Schindler relocated his workers to a new site in Brünnlitz (now in the Czech Republic), a move that likely saved their lives.

Immersive and Measured Storytelling

The museum gives generous space to this period. Visitors progress through a series of confined corridors and dimly lit rooms that echo the claustrophobic and tense mood of occupied life. Wartime posters, propaganda films, and archived footage provide context. There are reconstructions of street scenes and personal rooms, along with objects and photographs. The sequence is chronological, but the effect is less academic than experiential. One feels as though one is moving inward—into the city, into the fear, into the history.

Personal stories feature prominently in later sections. Photographs, letters, and testimonies bring the scale of the suffering into focus. Some are brief and grim, others more detailed. All of them are sobering. These displays do not rely on sentiment, but the plain truth of the accounts is enough. It is history presented not as nostalgia or melodrama, but as lived experience, difficult and unresolved.

Reflections and Modern Echoes

The museum does not comment on present-day affairs, but it is impossible not to draw comparisons. With conflicts not far from Poland’s borders, particularly in Ukraine, the themes of occupation, persecution and forced migration feel close. The material is historical, but the relevance is contemporary.

The final part of the exhibition returns to Schindler himself. His motivations are examined without embellishment. He was, in many respects, an opportunist who benefitted from the system he later defied. His membership in the Nazi Party is acknowledged. So is his eventual decision to use his resources and connections to protect his Jewish workers. The museum does not attempt to explain him away. It offers the contradictions plainly and allows visitors to reach their own conclusions.

A few items from Spielberg’s Schindler’s List are also on display—the desk and the stairs from the film set. These are not original artefacts, but they serve as reminders of how the story reached the wider world. For many visitors, the film was the entry point. Seeing these objects offers a curious sense of continuity between historical record and cultural memory.

Afterward

We left the museum quietly. The rain had stopped, but the streets were still wet and reflective. We walked back through the suburbs without saying much, both of us deep in thought. The museum had presented more than just a biography or a war story. It was a well-curated experience, immersive without being manipulative, thorough without being overwhelming. It offered no easy answers, and that was, I think, to its credit. It made space for reflection—and that, in the end, is what one hopes for in a place like this.