Kraków - Cmentarz Remuh

A legend attributes Kraków's founding to the mythical ruler Krakus, who built it above a cave occupied by a dragon, Smok Wawelski. The first written record dates to 965, when Kraków was described as a notable commercial center captured by a Bohemian duke Boleslaus I in 955. The first ruler of Poland, Mieszko I, took Kraków from the Bohemians.

In 1038, Kraków became the seat of the Polish government. By the end of the 10th century, the city was a center of trade. Brick buildings were constructed, including the Royal Wawel Castle. The city was sacked and burned during the Mongol invasion of 1241. It was rebuilt and incorporated in 1257 by Bolesław V the Chaste who introduced city rights. In 1259, the city was again ravaged by the Mongols. The third attack in 1287 was repelled thanks in part to the newly built fortifications.

The city rose to prominence in 1364, when Casimir III founded the University of Kraków, the second oldest university in central Europe. But after Casimir´s death in 1370 the campus did not get completed.

As the capital of the Kingdom of Poland and a member of the Hanseatic League, the city attracted craftsmen from abroad, guilds as science and the arts began to flourish. The 15th and 16th centuries are known as Poland's "Złoty Wiek" (Golden Age).

After childless King Sigismund II had died in 1572, the Polish throne passed to Henry III of France and then to other foreign-based rulers in rapid succession, causing a decline in the city's importance that was worsened by pillaging during the Swedish invasion and by an outbreak of bubonic plague that left 20,000 of the city's residents dead. In 1596, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa moved the capital of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth from Kraków to Warsaw.
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After pogroms in Krakow, John I Albert (alias Jan Olbracht) moved the local Jews to Kazimierz (today part of Krakow) in 1494. A separate Jewish settlement was established, surrounded by a wall until the 18th century, forming a smaller suburb of Kazimierz next to the larger Christian part of the city, whose inhabitants had little contact.

Kazimierz became the cultural and religious center of the Jews in Poland. In 1497, the first synagogue was built. Scholars such as Jakob Pollak and Moses Isserles came to Kazimierz, and rabbis for all of Poland were trained in the Talmud school there. In 1553, the Remuh Synagogue was built.

The Old Jewish Cemetery known as the Remah Cemetery was established in the years 1535–1551. It is situated beside the 16th-century Remah Synagogue. The cemetery bears the name of Rabbi Moses Isserles, whose name is abbreviated as Remah.

During the German occupation of Poland, the Nazis destroyed the site by hauling away tombstones to be used as paving stones in the camps or selling them for profit. The cemetery has undergone a series of post-war restorations. All original tombstones unearthed as paving stones have been returned and re-erected, although they represent a small fraction of the monuments that once stood in the cemetery.