The Holocaust Survival Story in Under the Eagle Pharmacy

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The Holocaust Survival Story in Under the Eagle Pharmacy At 17, my mother, during the Krakow ghetto roundup, rushed to hide in Under the Eagle Pharmacy, while her parents were sent to Belzec death camp.

This page preserves her story and honors Pharmacist Tadeusz Pankiewicz and his pharmacy, which saved many.

Through the Pharmacy Door Dr. Leon Steinberg A family connection Dr. Leon Steinberg, a Krakow gynecologist and obstetric...
22/10/2026

Through the Pharmacy Door

Dr. Leon Steinberg
A family connection

Dr. Leon Steinberg, a Krakow gynecologist and obstetrician, was among the Jewish doctors who visited the Eagle Pharmacy during the Krakow Ghetto years.

Before the war, he worked at the city's Jewish community Hospital.
He survived the Holocaust and practiced medicine after the war. Poland's 1948 medical directory lists Leon Steinberg as gynecologist and obstetrician, at 17 Jozefito'w Street Krakow.

later he immigrated to Israel. For our family, his story carries a personal connection: Dr. Steinberg married ,my mother Irena cousin Marisha . They had a son, Yoram , and later made their home in Israel.




Photo: The entrance to the Eagle Pharmacy, Krakow, photographed in 2018. During the Ghetto years, Dr. Leon Steinberg was among those who passed through its doors.

Ghetto visitors to the Eagle Pharmacy This new series will follow few of the Ghetto inhabitants , who regularly visited ...
19/10/2026

Ghetto visitors to the Eagle Pharmacy

This new series will follow few of the Ghetto inhabitants , who regularly visited the pharmacy during the N**i occupation . Visitors like my teen mother Irena Halpern -Cinowiec . She hid there in June 1942 and survived 🙏💚.

🦅📍Inside the Krakow Ghetto, people entered the Eagle Pharmacy for more than medicine. Jewish doctors, artists and intellectuals gathered there to exchange news, discuss events and maintain contact with the world beyond the Ghetto walls.

🦅📍These informal "parliaments" preserved something precious: the chance to speak, listen and remain part of a community.

In this series moving forward , we remember nine of the people behind those conversations.




Photo:
Tadeusz Pankiewicz at the entrance to the Eagle Pharmacy during the N**i German occupation of Krakow. His pharmacy became a place of aid, refuge and conversation for Jewish residents of the Ghetto.
Source: Yad Vashem website. Photographer and exact date unconfirmed .

As this series continues to follow Tadeusz Pankiewiecz memoir book (1947) , may we remember not only the tragedy of the...
16/10/2026

As this series continues to follow Tadeusz Pankiewiecz memoir book (1947) , may we remember not only the tragedy of the Krakow ghetto Jews, but also the extraordinary courage of those who risked everything to help others 🙏 .

The memoir gives us more than a record of destruction. It preserves examples of compassion, dignity and moral courage in circumstances designed to destroy all three 🥲.

The Pharmacy's story belongs to the victims, the survivors like my mother Irena, to the witnesses and those who refused to remain indifferent 🙏. By continuing to tell their stories, we help carry their memory from one generation to the next. I Maya am second generation to my brave survivor Mother Irena Halpern-Cinowiec 1925-2009 .

🦅📍 When in Krakow please 🙏.visit this authentic Under the Eagle Pharmacy muesum. Book tickets online and also guided tours (five visitors plus ) . 60-90 minutes needed .




📖 Recommended book : The Krakow Ghetto Pharmacy by Tadeusz
Pankiewicz (1947) . Copyright for the English translation by Wydawnictwo Literackie Poland 2013 . Private collection.

🦅📍The story of the Under the Eagle pharmacy demonstrates that individuals CAN make a profound difference, even under a b...
13/10/2026

🦅📍The story of the Under the Eagle pharmacy demonstrates that individuals CAN make a profound difference, even under a brutal regime like the N**i establishment.

Moral courage often begins with one decision. Tadeusz Pankiewicz owner and pharmacist CHOSE to remain with the Jewish community of the Krakow Ghetto in the sealed fences ...when he HAD the opportunity to leave, and his staff continued to help as a team, despite the the high risks surrounding them. Together they risked their lives and their families to assist Jewish residents of the Ghetto, providing medicines, food, and moral support during one of modern history darkest periods.

🦅📍They could could not stop the N**i machinery of persecution, but they could decide how they would respond to the people in front of them . My teen mother Irena Halpern- Cinowiec was one of these people, who hid in the pharmacy in June 1942 deportation🙏 .

Their example reminds us the humanity is expressed through choices, especially when choosing compassion is difficult or dangerous.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz - Owner and Parmacist 🙏 1908 - 1993
Aurelia Danek - Czortkowa - Pharmacist 🙏 1916 -1995
Helena Krywaniuk -Pharmacist 🙏 1918 - 1994
Irena Droz'dzikowska - Pharmacist 🙏 1913 - 1994




Photo: Jewish residents on Plac Zagody - the square where the pharmacy stood in March 1941 , during forced relocation into the Ghetto. On this square today called Hero's Square, the Under the Eagle Pharmacy would become a place of help and refuge.

Credit: National Museum in Krakow, as credited by Fotopolska. Photographer unidentified.

Today the Pharmacy Under the Eagle is a museum in Krakow. The authentic location of five rooms space. It stands as a la...
10/10/2026

Today the Pharmacy Under the Eagle is a museum in Krakow. The authentic location of five rooms space.

It stands as a lasting memorial to those who suffered and to those who chose humanity over indifference 🙏🦅 Visitors can stand in the same place from which Tadeusz and his staff witnessed the life and destruction of the Krakow Ghetto. Visitors can also stand in the room where my teem Mother Irena hid in the June 1942 deportation🙏🦅 💚.....

The preserved history connects documents and objects with the experience of real people who lived through those horrific events.
The pharmacy therefor continues its mission in a new form - no longer dispensing medicine, but preserving memory and teaching future generations.




Photo: Inside the pharmacy Under the Eagle Museum in Krakow Poland . Reconstructed pharmacy cabinets, medicine jars and photographs connected visitors with people and history of the Krakow Ghetto.
Credot: Adrian Grycuk, 13 April 2019/ Wikimedia Commons/ CC-SA 3.0 PL.

Many of the Jewish Ghetto inhabitants who entered the Under the Eagle pharmacy, never returned. 🦅📍Tadesz Pankiwicz owne...
07/10/2026

Many of the Jewish Ghetto inhabitants who entered the Under the Eagle pharmacy, never returned.

🦅📍Tadesz Pankiwicz owner and pharmacist preserved their memory through his writing. His pages contain glimpses of individuals who might otherwise have disappeared from history without a trace ...

Remembering them means seeing them not simply as victims, but as people who had families, professions, freindships, fears and hopes.

🦅📍Through testimony, the pharmacy became not only a witness to destruction but also a place from which memory SURVIVED 🙏

When in Krakow Poland visit the authentic pharmacy museum, where many like my teen mother Irena hid and survived 🙏 💪 ....
book online tickets and group guided tours (5 visitors plus) .
60-90 minutes needed 🙏 .




Photo: A boy on a street in the Krakow Ghetto. Remembering the children means remembering their lives, their families, and the futures stolen from them .
Credit: Yad Vashem Photo Archives, Children in the Holocaust online exhbition.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz's memoir reminds us that rescue did not always involve dramatic escapes. Sometimes it meant medicine,...
04/10/2026

Tadeusz Pankiewicz's memoir reminds us that rescue did not always involve dramatic escapes. Sometimes it meant medicine, food, advice, a hiding place or simply kindness. My teen mother knew she could hide in the pharmacy in June 1942, during a N**i deportation. She trusted the pharmacy owner and staff.

Under persecution, an ordinary gesture could become an extraordinary act because even small assistance carried danger.
The pharmacy offered a place where people could sometimes find practical help and a moment of human sympathy.

Pankiewicz account shows how compassion can matter even when it cannot change the larger tragedy unfolding outside 🙏

For my teen mother, Iraena Halpern-Cinowiec, this human compassion saved her (and here I am !)🙏 although her parents and extended family were sent away in June 1942 to Belzec's death camp 🥲.




Photo: A Jewish doctor speaks with children in N**i German-occupied Krakow - Reflection on care, kindness and human dignity during persecution.

Credit: Unknown photographer / Farabola /Bridgeman Images.
Image OLA5364034

Source: Museum of Krakow Ghetto

After the war, pharmacist Pankiewicz believed the story had to be written while memoires were still fresh.His 1947 memoi...
01/10/2026

After the war, pharmacist Pankiewicz believed the story had to be written while memoires were still fresh.

His 1947 memoir became one of the earliest eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. By recording names, events and personal observations so soon after the destruction of the Krakow Ghetto, he preserved details that might otherwise have vanished.

His writings was not only a recollection of what happened. It was testimony on behalf of many people who could no longer speak for themselves. The memoir remains remains important bridge between the destroyed world of the Jewish Ghetto and generations born afterward , like myself , Maya .

Tadeush Pankiewicz born Nov. 21 1908 (Sambor now Sambir Ukraine) died November 5, 1993 (Krakow Poland) at the age of 84 , just 16 days before his 85th birthday.




Photo: portrait of Tadeusz Pankiewicz pharmacist and owner of Under the Eagle Pharmacy in Krakow Poland .

The portrait appeared in an article published by the American Institute of the history of the Pharmacy. Portrait dated 1940-1943.
Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and identities photo archive #41937

🦅📍 Despite constant danger, the pharmacy continued to serve the Krakow Ghetto residents until the Ghetto was liquidated ...
28/09/2026

🦅📍 Despite constant danger, the pharmacy continued to serve the Krakow Ghetto residents until the Ghetto was liquidated in March 1943.

🦅📍 Every day it remained open was an act of courage. Its staff worked while violence, deportations, and uncertainty surrounded them, never knowing what the next day might bring.

🦅📍 Keeping the doors open meant maintaining one small place where medicine, information, and human concern were still available.

🦅📍 The pharmacy's endurance became a quiet refusal to surrender compassion to terror.

🦅📍The pharmacy closed its original location in 1967, about 24 years later 🙏 . Tadeusz Pankiewucz worked at the pharmacy until the end of 1953. It was nationalized in 1951 (the Polish state took ownership of the pharmacy), but he stayed on as its manager until December 31, 1953. He then worked at another pharmacy and retired in 1974.




Photo:

German N**i forces on plac Zgody during the liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto, March 1943. The Eagle pharmacy stood on this square.

Credit: Institute of National Remembrance, Krakow Collection
(IPN w Krakowie)

The liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto remains one of the memoir's most painful chapters.Tadeusz Pankiewicz documented in ...
25/09/2026

The liquidation of the Krakow Ghetto remains one of the memoir's most painful chapters.

Tadeusz Pankiewicz documented in his book what he witnessed with remarkable honesty 🙏 . In March 1943, the remaining ghetto Jews population was subjected to a final brutal action: some were forced into labour, others deported to death camps, and many were killed during the liquidation itself.

From the pharmacy windows and the surrounding square, Pankiewicz witnessed the destruction of the Jewish community he had served for years!

His testimony allows later generations like myself to confront this tragic history through the eyes of someone WHO WAS THERE.

When in Krakow, Poland, plan to visit this authentic pharmacy museum in the Hero's Square. Tickets are available online, and you can book tours as well (5+ visitors). 60-90 minutes needed.




Photo:

Jews forced through the streets

Jewish residents carry their belongings through Krakow under N**i guard during the liquidation of the Krakaow Ghetto, March 1943.

Credit: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of Instytut Pamieci Narodowej. Public Domain. Wikimedia.

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