BS”D 22 Iyar 5781 On 4 May 1660 (St. Florian’s day) crowds went in procession from the cathedral to St. Florian’s church. Young academics used the occasion to attach the Jews nearby, beating them bloody and robbing them. A few Jews paid with their life and those who managed hid in the “Lizard house” (ul. Floriańska 6). Unfortunately the students of Kraków hated the Jews. In spite – as Mejer Bałaban wrote – of royal warnings and prohibitions, attacks on the streets and in the cities were happening daily. Dark figures circled the common folk and showed them “written court proclamations” and bands of ruffians in the cities “used made-up excuses … and made-up lists, using soldiers, pilgrims and students killed Jews, robbed their homes and committed…
BS”D 22 Iyar 5781 Mordechaj Gebirtig was born on 4 May 1877 in Kraków, a professional carpenter and by passion a poet, a songwriter and an actor. He was linked to Krakow’s Kazimierz almost all his life. Mordechaj Gebirtig was called the last Jewish popular artist in Poland and the Bertold Brecht of Kazimierz. His creations mirrored the whole complexity of cultural and common life of the Jews in pre-War Poland and above all, in “Kroke”, Kraków. In December 1940 he had to move from Kraków to Łagiewnik. Thus, as a poet, he said goodbye to his beloved city: Goodbye Kraków Be healthy Under my house a car waits already. Here from my town I am chased like a hound. The streets like a desert are found…