The article is an attempt to confront the picture of open Polish cultural life in Cracow under German occupation which emerges from reminiscences, with what has been established in subject literature. The author describes, how the official Polish cultural life was presented in the reminiscences of people who spent the years of occupation in Cracow. She uses published and unpublished diaries, reminiscences in the form of articles, competition essays, interviews and journals. She presents the principles of the Germans’ cultural policy in the General Gouvernement and the possibilities created in this field in Cracow. She refers to the opinions of people writing about the open cultural life, judging its level and arguments for participating in it or fighting against it. She reflects on such factors like the age of the writers, their level of education and their jobs influenced their way of writing about the official cultural life. It turned out that the time when the reminiscences were written was important, which proves that there was a set model of presenting Nazi occupation in the Polish People’s Republic and that the authors would self-censor their reminiscences, taking into account their publication.