The Cracow Ghetto Pharmacy by Tadeusz Pankiewicz

genre: memoir

When the Krakow Ghetto was created shortly after the beginning of the second World War, the borders were placed right around Pankiewicz's pharmacy.  As a Pole, he could have easily left and found a safer place to wait out the war, but he didn't.  He chose to stay and to not just witness but to help, in so many ways, his less fortunate Jewish neighbors and friends.  This book is his remembrances about the time period.  It is definitely good if you already have some knowledge about this period of time before you read because there is no historical background or context, not even of Pankiewicz himself (how old is he?  does he have a family?).    This book is what he remembers, what he saw, the absolute horror as well as the heroism that he watched through the windows of his pharmacy which looked right onto the square upon which was so much bloodshed and heartache.  It's about his interactions with the Jewish leadership as well as with the many German commanders and toadies that were in charge .

This was hard, hard to read.  It was slow going partly because there are so so many names that I could never keep straight.  There is no narrative or flow, and no trying to create a piece of literature.  It is just the raw truth.  And it hurts.  It is horrific, images that scorch the soul, to think of people, children, infants, treated like less than animals.  To think of him staying, listening, advising, hiding, helping, WITNESSING, over and over, this man is a hero.