Kazimierz (Polish pronunciation: [kaˈʑimjɛʂ]; Latin: Casimiria; Yiddish: קוזמיר‎, romanized: Kuzimyr) is a historical district of Kraków and Kraków Old Town, Poland. From its inception in the fourteenth century to the early nineteenth century, Kazimierz was an independent city, a royal city of the Crown of the Polish Kingdom, located south of the Old Town of Kraków, separated from it by a branch of the Vistula river. For many centuries, Kazimierz was a place of coexistence and intermingling of ethnic Polish and Jewish cultures. The northeastern part of the district was historically Jewish, and its inhabitants were forcibly relocated by the German occupying forces into the Krakow ghetto just across the river in Podgórze in 1941. Today Kazimierz is one of the major tourist attractions of Kra