Ghetto Heroes Square and the Empty Chairs: The Memorial Explained

Ghetto Heroes Square and the empty chairs sitting across it form one of the most visually striking, and most misunderstood, memorials in Krakow. Marta explains what the square was before the war, what the chairs actually represent, and how to visit it in a way that matches the weight of what happened there.

What the Square Was Before It Was a Memorial

Plac Bohaterów Getta, known before the war as Plac Zgody, sat at the centre of the Krakow ghetto established by the Nazis in Podgórze in 1941. It functioned as the ghetto’s main public square and, during the mass deportations of 1942-1943, as an assembly and selection point where Jewish residents were gathered before being sent to Płaszów or directly to Auschwitz-Birkenau. The square’s ordinary, functional appearance today — surrounded by tram lines and apartment buildings — is part of what makes its history difficult to grasp without context; there’s little about the physical space itself that signals what occurred here. This is precisely why the memorial installation matters as much as it does — without it, the square would read simply as an unremarkable tram junction, its history entirely dependent on a visitor already knowing to look for it.

The Design: 70 Chairs and What They Represent

The memorial consists of around 70 large, oversized metal chairs scattered across the square at irregular intervals, roughly 65 of them within the square itself and several more positioned at nearby tram stops and building entrances. Each chair stands about waist-high, deliberately larger than a functional chair, forcing visitors to notice them as symbolic objects rather than street furniture. The scattered, seemingly random placement is intentional — it echoes accounts of the deportations, during which residents were forced to leave their belongings, including furniture, abandoned in the streets as they were marched away.

Why Chairs Specifically

The chair was chosen as the memorial’s central symbol because of a specific detail from survivor accounts: furniture, including chairs, was among the everyday objects left scattered across the square during the deportations, as families were forced to abandon their homes with only what they could carry. An empty chair also carries an obvious, almost universal symbolism of absence — someone who should be sitting there is gone. The combination of a documented historical detail and a broadly legible symbol is part of why the memorial reads clearly even to visitors with no prior knowledge of the square’s history. Some visitors initially mistake the chairs for public seating and are surprised to learn otherwise — a reaction the memorial’s designers seem to have anticipated, since the accompanying signage addresses this directly rather than assuming the symbolism will be immediately obvious to everyone.

The Artists Behind the Memorial

The memorial was designed by architects Piotr Lewicki and Kazimierz Łatak, unveiled in 2005 as part of a broader redevelopment of the square that also restored some of its historical layout. The project deliberately avoided a single, traditional statue or plaque in favor of an installation spread across the entire public space, so that the memorial is something visitors and residents pass through and around in daily life rather than a fixed monument viewed from a distance. This everyday integration is unusual among Holocaust memorials and is part of what makes the square distinctive. Visitors who’ve seen more conventional memorials elsewhere in Europe — a single statue, a wall of names, an enclosed garden — sometimes need a moment to recalibrate what they’re looking at here, since there’s no obvious central focal point directing where to stand or what to look toward first.

Visiting Practicalities

The square is open at all hours, free to visit, and sits directly on Podgórze’s main tram line, making it easy to reach from the Old Town or Kazimierz in around 15-20 minutes. There’s no ticket, entry point, or set visiting window — it’s a functioning public square that happens to also be a memorial, which means it’s worth checking that you’re visiting with appropriate attention rather than passing through as a photo stop between other sights.

The Eagle Pharmacy on the Square’s Edge

Apteka pod Orłem sits directly on the square and is worth combining with your visit — it was the pharmacy run by Tadeusz Pankiewicz, a Polish pharmacist who remained in the ghetto and quietly assisted Jewish residents throughout the occupation. It’s now a small, free museum, typically taking under 30 minutes, and gives the square’s history a specific, personal anchor beyond the memorial installation itself. If you want a fuller picture of the wider Podgórze ghetto sites, pairing the square with the pharmacy is the natural next stop.

Photography and Respectful Visiting

Photographing the chairs is common and generally uncontroversial — the installation is public, open, and designed to be seen. Where Marta suggests some restraint is in how the photos are framed; using the chairs purely as a striking backdrop for a posed portrait sits oddly against what they’re memorializing. A quiet, unhurried walk across the square, reading the accompanying information panels, tends to be a more fitting way to spend the ten or fifteen minutes most visitors give it.

What Locals Notice

Podgórze residents pass through this square as part of ordinary daily life — waiting for trams, walking to work — and locals will point out that this everyday use is, in its own way, part of what the memorial’s designers intended. It isn’t cordoned off or treated as separate from the neighbourhood’s present; it’s woven into it, which changes how the history sits in the space compared to a memorial you’d only ever visit deliberately. A resident catching a tram past the chairs every morning carries a different, quieter relationship with the memorial than a visitor who arrives once, deliberately, to see it — and both are, in their own way, part of what the square continues to hold.

Understanding the Memorial with a Guide

Because so little of the square’s wartime function is visible in its current, ordinary appearance, a guide adds real value here specifically — pointing out where the assembly points stood, which surrounding buildings date from the ghetto period, and how the square connects to the broader story of deportation and resistance in Podgórze. The Jewish Quarter and Former Ghetto Tour routes through Ghetto Heroes Square as part of a wider walk covering both Kazimierz and Podgórze, giving the memorial the narrative context that’s easy to miss standing there alone.

How the Square Fits Into a Wider Podgórze Walk

Ghetto Heroes Square sits within easy walking distance of the ghetto wall fragment on Lwowska Street and Schindler’s Factory Museum, making it a natural anchor point for a self-guided walk through the district’s WWII sites. Most visitors spend ten to twenty minutes at the square itself before continuing on, though allowing a bit longer to read the information panels properly and step into the Eagle Pharmacy is worth the extra time if your schedule permits it.

Seasonal Notes

The square is entirely outdoors and exposed, with little shade from surrounding buildings, so summer midday visits can be uncomfortably hot, while winter mornings bring a stark, quiet atmosphere that some visitors find fits the memorial’s tone particularly well. Unlike ticketed sites nearby, there’s no seasonal booking pressure here — the square is equally accessible year-round, so timing your visit is purely a matter of personal comfort and atmosphere rather than availability.

What to Read Next

• Schindler’s Factory and the Krakow Ghetto: WWII Sites and Tickets
• Schindler’s Guided Tour vs Audio Guide: What’s Worth Paying For

Frequently Asked Questions

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