The Chłodna Footbridge: The Bridge of Sighs

Why is it significant?

Stand on the cobblestones of Chłodna street and look up between two tall metal poles that reach toward each other overhead, connected by optical fiber cables that glow after dark: this is the Footbridge of Memory, the Kładka Pamięci.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand on the cobblestones of Chłodna street and look up between two tall metal poles that reach toward each other overhead, connected by optical fiber cables that glow after dark: this is the Footbridge of Memory, the Kładka Pamięci. It marks the exact location of the wooden footbridge that linked the Large Ghetto to the Small Ghetto from January to August 1942. The bridge was immortalized in wartime photographs and came to symbolize the surreal cruelty of Nazi segregation.

Chłodna street was a vital east-west thoroughfare through Warsaw that the German military refused to close to non-Jewish traffic. To keep the two halves of the ghetto separated from the Aryan street, German engineers constructed a steep wooden footbridge two storeys high over the tram lines and roadway. Thousands of ghetto residents climbed the wooden stairs daily to reach workshops or family, crossing high in the air while German police and Polish streetcars passed below them.

Ghetto diarists called it the Bridge of Sighs. Crossing the wooden walkway was a moment of profound psychological humiliation: pedestrians were forced to hurry under the whips of guards, while looking down on a normal city where free people rode bicycles, bought ice cream and strolled with their children. For many, the view from the bridge was the last glimpse of the outside world they would ever see.

Look at the corner building at Chłodna 20, known as the House with the Clock, with its distinctive corner turret. Here lived Adam Czerniaków, head of the Jewish Council, and across the street at number 23 lived the family of young Roman Polański, who survived the ghetto as a child. Today, Chłodna has been restored as an atmospheric pedestrian promenade with gas lamps and outdoor cafés.

Walk a short block east along Chłodna and turn right into Waliców street, where raw pre-war brick facades still bear the scars of artillery.