Paszkówka is a village in the administrative district of Gmina Brezeznica, within Wadowice Country, Lesser Poland Voivodeshipt, in southern Poland. It lies approximately 16 kilometres (10 mi) north-east of Wadowice and 23 km (14 mi) south-west of the regional capital, Kraków.

Kraków is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century.^[Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 and has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, economic, cultural and artistic life. Cited as one of Europe's most beautiful cities, its Old Town was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The city has grown from a Stone Age settlement to Poland's second most important city. It began as a hamlet on Wawel Hill and was already being reported as a busy trading centre of Central Europe in 965.With the establishment of new universities and cultural venues at the emergence of the Second Polish Republic in 1918 and throughout the 20th century, Kraków reaffirmed its role as a major national academic and artistic centre. The city has a population of about 770,000, with approximately 8 million additional people living within a 100 km (62 mi) radius of its main square.

After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany at the start of World War II, the newly defined Distrikt Krakau (Kraków District) became the capital of Germany's General Government. The Jewish population of the city was forced into a walled zone known as the  Ghetto, from which they were sent to German extermination camps such as the nearby Auschwitz, never to return, and the Nazi concentrations camps like Plaszów.

In 1978, Karol Wojtyła, archbishop of Kraków, was elevated to the papacy as Pope John Paul II—the first Slavic pope ever, and the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. Also that year, UNESCO approved the first ever sites for its new World Heritage List, including the entire Old Town in inscribing Kraków's Historic Centre. Kraków is classified as a global city with the ranking of high sufficiency by GaWC. Its extensive cultural heritage across the epochs of Gothic Renaissance and Baroque Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque architecture includes the Wawel Cathedral and the Royal Castle on the banks of the Vistula, the St Mary's Basilica, Saints Peter and Paul Church and the largest medieval market square in Europe, the Rynek Glówny. Kraków is home to Jagiellonian University, one of the oldest universties in the world and traditionally Poland's most reputable institution of higher learning.

In 2000, Kraków was named European Capital of Culture. In 2013 Kraków was officially approved as a UNESCO City of Literature. The city hosted the World Youth Day in July 2016.

Kraków's "Golden Age"

Woodcut of Kraków from the Noremberg Chronicle, 1493.

The 15th and 16th centuries were known as Poland's Złoty Wiek or Golden Age. Many works of Polish Renaissance art and architecture were created, including ancient synagogues in Kraków's Jewish quarter located in the north-eastern part of Kazimierz, such as the Old Synagogue. During the reign of Casimir IV, various artists came to work and live in Kraków, and Johann Haller established a printing press in the city after Kasper Straube had printed the Calendarium Craviense, the first work printed in Poland, in 1473.

View of Kraków (Cracovia) near the end of the 16th-century.

In 1495, King John I Albert expelled the Jews from the city walls of Kraków; they moved to Kazimierz (now a district of Kraków). However, they were still allowed to trade on the Main Square.

In 1520, the most famous church bell in Poland, named Zyomunt after Sigismund I of Poland, was cast by Hans Behem. At that time, Hans Durer, a younger brother of artist and thinker Albrecht Durer, was Sigismund's court painter. Hans von Kulmbach made alterpieces for several churches. In 1553, the Kazimierz district council gave the Jewish Qahal a licence for the right to build their own interior walls across the western section of the already existing defensive walls. The walls were expanded again in 1608 due to the growth of the community and influx of Jews from Bohemia.^[43] In 1572, King Sigismund II, the last of the Jagiellons, died childless. 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 administrative capital of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from Kraków to Warsaw.