Eagle Pharmacy, Krakow

The Eagle Pharmacy Museum stands on the southwestern fringe of Bohaterów Getta Square in Kraków.

From 1910 onwards, it was owned by Jozef Pankiewicz and later by his son, Tadeusz Pankiewicz, who took over in 1933. Prior to World War II, it was one of four pharmacies in the Podgórze district, serving both Polish and Jewish residents.

In March 1941, the Germans established a ghetto for Kraków's Jewish population in Podgórze. Within its confines, Pankiewicz's pharmacy remained the sole one, and he was the only non-Jewish individual allowed to stay within the ghetto. The Germans mandated that all public signs and inscriptions in Polish be replaced except for the Polish sign 'Pod Orłem' (Under the Eagle) above the entrance to Tadeusz Pankiewicz’s pharmacy.

The ghetto's inhabitants clandestinely convened at the pharmacy, including figures like writer Mordechai Gebirtig, painter Abraham Neumann, and doctors Julian Aleksandrowicz, Bernhard Bornstein, and Leon Steinberg. The pharmacy became a hub for resources and medicines, aiding in averting deportations.

Amid the tragic events of the Plac Zgody displacement in 1942, the pharmacy staff provided free medications and dressings. Its concealed spaces offered refuge, shielding Jews from deportation to extermination camps. During the brutal liquidation of the Krakow ghetto in March 1943, Pankiewicz supplied medications to parents to help their children sleep while in hiding.

Post-war, the Polish state nationalized the pharmacy in 1951, though Pankiewicz retained usage rights until 1955. The pharmacy shuttered in 1967, and a bar operated on the premises until 1981. In 1983, a small historical exhibition opened within the building while Pankiewicz was still alive. In 2003, with a donation from film director Roman Polanski, a former resident of the Krakow ghetto, the museum expanded.