Eagle Pharmacy

Since 1909, it was owned by Józef Pankiewicz, succeeded by his son Tadeusz (21/11/1908-5/11/1993), who ran it from 1934. Before the war, the customers of the pharmacy, one of four in Podgórze, included both Jewish and Polish residents of the district. It supplied medicines to, among others, the charitable society taking care of the sick, Bikur Cholim.

When in March 1941 the Germans established a ghetto for Krakow Jews in the Podgórze district, Pankiewicz's pharmacy on Zgody Square was the only one within its boundaries, and its owner was the only Pole allowed to stay there permanently. The pharmacy became a meeting venue for Jewish intellectuals, scientists, and artists who lived in the ghetto. Soon, it also began to supply the ghetto inhabitants with various remedies and medicines to help them avoid deportation, such as hair dyes to make them look younger and Luminal, which was used to soothe children kept in hiding places or smuggled in luggage outside the ghetto. During the bloody deportations in Zgody Square in 1942, the pharmacy personnel issued free dressings and medicines to the injured. The nooks and crannies at the pharmacy were used as hiding places to save people from deportation to extermination camps. Pankiewicz and his assistants: Irena Droździkowska, Aurelia Danek and Helena Krywaniuk were liaisons between the Jews inside and outside the ghetto, passing on information and smuggling food. The deported also deposited with them their valuables in the last few moments before leaving the ghetto.