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Although the dilapidated replica of the Nazi’s Płaszów Labor Camp was built for Steven Spielberg’s film Schindler’s List in 1992, the site is eerily realistic and has its own history of Nazi atrocities.
The Płaszów set was created using the original blueprints of the camp and erected in a quarry just a few hundred feet from the historic location of the labor camp. Furthermore, inmates of Płaszów camp worked in the limestone quarry and were murdered on the site the replica now stands on. A road made of Jewish tombstones running through the center of the quarry is composed of prop headstones, but the inmates of the real Płaszów Labor Camp would have had to tread to and from work in the quarry over a similar road made of their ancestors' graves.
The site is all but forgotten today, overgrown with vegetation and crumbling, and most Holocaust tourism remains directed on Auschwitz and the Jewish Ghetto. However, anyone up for a short walk from the center of town can experience an abandoned labor camp rusting away in a filthy limestone quarry.
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Know Before You Go
The quarry is southwest of the Kopiec Krakusa, one of many monumental mounds, and Podgurski Nowy cemetery. It is about a 25-minute walk from Krakow's Jewish district. There is a fence surrounding the upper parts of the quarry so that no one falls in, but follow the southeastern wall of the cemetery and there is a walkway down to the site.
Keep in mind that you are entering the quarry at your own risk! If you want to access the towers, be careful of the rusty plates and corners! Also test before you step, especially the ladders. The attached map (as photo)may assist you to find the places
Published
April 27, 2013
