Krakow During the German Occupation 1939-1945

 During the occupation of Poland during World War II, the city of Kraków became the capital city of a region called the General Government(often abbreviated in the literature as GG). ​

Photo Source: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum


This German zone of occupation in Poland was inhabited by 11 million people, all of whom were to become a source of cheap labor for the German occupiers. 

To accomplish this task the entire GG region saw the establishment of an endless number of German offices and bureaus. Kraków, where governor Hans Frank took up office at Wawel Castle and hoisted the Nazi swastika, also became the seat of an ever-expanding number of administrative offices filled by thousands of German  civil servants, clerks, lawyers, officials and their families.  
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All businesses, factories and enterprises formerly owned by the Polish and Jewish population were taken over by Germans. They took control of the railway system. The Polish and Jewish press and radio were liquidated. German shops and bookstores appeared with Hitler's portrait in the leading role.  In addition, there was a large military garrison and various services such as the Gestapo, SS (Schutzstaffel, the elite guard of the Nazi regime)and SA (storm troopers).  Everything was in the hands of the Germans.

To accommodate this influx of Germans, the city was divided into zones and Germans began brutally removing Kraków residents from their homes, taking over the better homes and entire neighborhoods. Poles who were displaced were moved to the districts of Stradom and Kazimierz, home to Krakow’s Jewish population, who were simultaneously relocated to the Kraków ghetto under the slogan that "Jews are carriers of infectious diseases.”  They were locked in and those who could not work for the Reich were later deported to extermination camps.

From 1940 on, all the streets in the city were Germanized. 
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Tram stop in front of Sukiennice (Cloth Hall in Old Town,1940) at the time. NAC photo

There were separate trams for Poles and Germans or Poles could only board the back of the tram.
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Sign reads: Only for German Passengers. NAC photo

Old  Town in Krakow was renamed Adolf Hitler Platz. 1940  NAC photo

 To limit contact with the local population, separate places of worship were created.

 Polish Catholics were ousted from attending services at St. Peter and Paul Church on Grodzka Street and became a church for Germans only. NAC photo.

From the very first days of the occupation, the Germans began the planned liquidation of the Polish culture. The Poles, considered racial undesirables, were viewed by the occupiers as “untermensch”, that is, subhuman. Poles were only fit to provide cheap labor for the enterprises taken over by the Germans in Poland and as workers in industry and agriculture in Germany. Men, women and then entire families were rounded up against their will and deported for work in Germany not only from Kraków but throughout the General Government. My mother was one of the half million women deported for forced labor.
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 Poles receiving a quarter loaf of bread and piece of sausage for three day train trip to the Reich. 1939.

Statistics indicate that nearly 2 million Poles were taken to Germany for forced labor, where they were treated like slaves, were brutally mistreated, starved and died from neglect and illness. 

For more about the General Government and forced labor program during the occupation of Poland see: 
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Wearing the Letter P: Polish Women as Forced Laborers in Nazi Germany 1939-1945 Hippocrene Books, Inc.

Other sources :
 Jan  Dąbrowski.  Kraków  pod rządami wroga. 1939 – 1945