Cracow Jewish Community Print Page

The monument commemorates the Cracow Jewish community who perished in the Holocaust during World War Two. A plaque on the memorial is erected in memory of Michael Schnall, the designer of the memorial who died in 1983. Plaques on the side of the monument contain the names of the some of the families who perished in the Holocaust. The memorial was consecrated on the 40th anniversary of the destruction of the Cracow Ghetto. 

The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War Two. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and persecution of local Polish Jews, as well as the staging area for separating the "able workers" from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life. The Ghetto was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943, with most of its inhabitants sent to their deaths at Bełżec extermination camp as well as Płaszów slave-labour camp and Auschwitz concentration camp, 60 kilometres (37 mi) rail distance.

The Holocaust was a genocide in which Adolf Hitler'`s Nazi Germany and its collaborators killed about six million Jews. The victims included 1.5 million children and represented about two-thirds of the nine million Jews who had resided in Europe. Some definitions of the Holocaust include the additional five million non-Jewish victims of Nazi mass murders bringing the total to about 11 million.

Location

Address:	50 Browns Road, Melbourne Chevra Kadisha Springvale Cemetery, Noble Park North, 3174
State:	VIC
Area:	Foreign
GPS Coordinates:	Lat: -37.945607 Long: 145.187837 Note: GPS Coordinates are approximate.

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Details

Monument Type:	Monument
Monument Theme:	Conflict
Sub-Theme:	Genocide
Designer:	Michael Schnall

Dedication

Actual Monument Dedication Date:	Sunday 20th February, 1983

Source: MA