Powązki cemetery

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Entrance gate
The catacombs
Avenue of those who deserve for the fatherland
Between graves
Burial path

The Powązki Cemetery ( Polish : Cmentarz Powązkowski ) is the most famous and historically most important municipal cemetery in the Polish capital, Warsaw . It is a resource for sculpture and small architecture.

There are several cemeteries in the Powązki district of Warsaw:

  1. The old Roman Catholic Powązki cemetery with the Karl Borromeo Church.
  2. The Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street
  3. The Tatar-Islamic Cemetery at the end of Tatarska Street
  4. The Caucasian Islamic Cemetery on Obozowa / Młynarska Street
  5. The Evangelical Augsburg cemetery on Młynarska Street with the Halpern Chapel
  6. The Evangelical Reformed Cemetery on Młynarska Street and Żytnia Street

and 1 km to the northwest:

  1. The military / municipal cemetery on Powązkowska Street with the graves of the victims of the Warsaw Uprising .

history

The old, Roman Catholic Powązki cemetery is located in the western part of Wola and is 43 hectares in size. Its origins go back to 1790. At that time, other cemeteries in the center of Warsaw were closed for sanitary reasons. The Starost Melchior Korwin Szymanowski made 2.6 hectares available for the complex, on May 20, 1792 the cemetery was consecrated and in 1793 the construction of the Saint Borromeo Church was completed, founded by King Stanislaus August and Prince Primate Michael Poniatowski, who was the architect Dominik Merlini .

The cemetery has been expanded 19 times in the course of its history, the last time to its present size in 1971. It is administered by the church and houses around 2.5 million mostly Catholic burial sites. The other denominations, u. a. Lutherans , Calvinists , Jews and Tatars have their own cemeteries in the same complex.

One of the most important extensions was the establishment of the military cemetery in 1912, referred to as the municipal cemetery during the era of the People's Republic and some time afterwards. After Poland regained independence in 1918, it became a state necropolis , where many of the most famous Poles are buried, regardless of their religious affiliation , many of them in Aleja Zasłużonych , the avenue of the deserving.

In the Second World War , the cemetery suffered damage as the church, some of the graves is still in ruins. The Home Army ( Armia Krajowa ) was also active on the site because of the many shelter options , also for supplying the Warsaw Ghetto .

A large part of the remote military / municipal cemetery is occupied by the graves of victims of the Warsaw Uprising . In many cases the names remained unknown and the graves only bear an identification number from the Polish Red Cross . There are also some burial grounds for members of various branches of arms and military units, as well as mass graves of civilian victims.

Every November 1st, All Saints' Day , as in all Polish cemeteries, vigils are held and candles are placed on the graves. Since 1974, donations have been collected on November 1st and 2nd for the renovation of valuable tombs. Well-known actors, writers and journalists act as fundraisers. At the same time, donations are being collected for the rescue of the Polish Łyczakowski cemetery in what is now Lemberg , Ukraine . The fundraising campaign was initiated by the music critic Jerzy Waldorff (1910–1999). His tomb is next to the old catacombs.

Gravesites

selected personalities:

Krzysztof Kieślowski's grave
Jacek Kuroń's grave

Lilpop family burial site

Czeslaw Niemen's grave


Michał Poniatowski's tombstone

Skłodowski family grave

Web links

Commons : Powązki cemetery  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 15 ′ 3 ″  N , 20 ° 58 ′ 14 ″  E