Yelp Review 2023 #279:…read more
I love stories of hope despite immense turmoil - of people helping each other out without expecting anything in return but simply wanting others to simply...stay alive. This is what Apteka Pod Orlem, otherwise known as Eagle Pharmacy, stood for.
Owned and operated by the Pankiewicz family, it served Jewish and Polish residents of Kaziemerz and Podgorze in Krakow. During World War II, this pharmacy became a meeting place, a place of refuge. It's located in Podgorze (the Jewish ghexxo during the war). It was the only Polish owned business that was allowed to stay in business. Certain items deemed useful for survival such as calming drugs (to quiet down crying and shaking children in hiding), sleeping pills, hair dye, and food they smuggled in and gave to the people living in the ghexxo. They also kept valuables before people got deported to concentration camps. Very underground operations which helped a lot of Jewish people.
The pharmacy is now a museum. Buy your ticket by going to the door to the left of the main entrance - even on days entrance is free, you still have to claim your ticket. I got my ticket for free because it was a Wednesday.
It's a small museum but if you like you read and look at everything, plan on spending about an hour. Same museum policy: don't touch. However, there's a stamp on the old cash register if you want to stamp an old passport or your journal - ask first just to be sure.
The displays have descriptions on them. But I was extra curious about the kinds of medicines they had and what they could possibly be used for during the war. So, I had to look some of them up since I'm not a pharmacist. There was one part of the display of burnt items collected from a concentration camp but the bar of soap didn't burn (they don't make heavy duty soap anymore).
Tadeusz Pankiwiecz was later on honored for his service to the community.
