Zlín Forest Cemetery
The Zlín Forest Cemetery ( Czech : Lesní hřbitov ve Zlíně ) is the central cemetery of the city of Zlín in the Czech Republic . It has an area of 21 hectares and is located three kilometers south of the city center of Zlín.
geography
The cemetery is located between Zlín and Březnice on a knoll in the Vizovice Upland . Road II / 497 from Zlín to Uherské Hradiště runs to the west . To the north rises the Barabaš (410 m), in the east the Záhumenní (462 m), southwest the Balaš (386 m) and in the northwest the Tlustá horá (458 m).
Surrounding towns are Zlín in the north, Kudlov in the northeast, Fabiánka in the east, Březnice in the south, Záhutí in the southwest and U Majáku in the west.
history
On the initiative of city doctor Rudolf Gerbec, Zlín entrepreneur and mayor Tomáš Baťa presented the city councilors with a plan designed by František Lydie Gahura for the establishment of a central cemetery for the prosperous industrial city. This should be built outside the city in a quiet location and offer enough space for burials for the next hundred years. The system with a rust-shaped floor plan was designed for 30,000 burial sites, with a period of 15 years until the corpses completely decomposed. The architect was inspired by the forest cemetery in Haida in northern Bohemia and by American cemeteries. After approval of the project by the Uherské Hradiště district administration, construction began in 1931. At the intersection of the axes, a stone cross with a figure of the crucified was created.
The cemetery was solemnly consecrated on All Souls Day in 1932. The first burials had already taken place beforehand. The first to be buried was the son of the city doctor Rudolf Gerbec. On July 14, 1932, Tomáš Baťa and his pilot Jindřich Brouček were buried after a fatal crash. František Lydie Gahura designed their adjacent grave sites with simple black granite grave slabs . In 1934 a driveway was laid from the district road to the cemetery. According to plans by the architect Jiři Čančík, the Gottwaldov crematorium was built in the cemetery in 1978 - today it is Zlín again.
Today the cemetery exists with an 80-100-year-old mixed forest, which outside of the areas used by graves serves as an urban commercial forest. Of the current 11,500 graves, 4,600 are burial graves, 2,500 urn graves and 4,500 community places.
Graves
The following well-known personalities are buried in the cemetery:
- Tomáš Baťa (1876–1932), entrepreneur and founder of the Baťa concern
- Rudolf Gerbec (1871–1935), doctor and social reformer, head of the social work of the Baťa group
- František Lydie Gahura (1891–1958), architect
- Karel Zeman (1910–1989), film director
- Hermína Týrlová (1900–1993), director and animation producer
- Karel Rachůnek (1979–2011), ice hockey player
Web links
- Website (czech)
Coordinates: 49 ° 12 ′ 1 ″ N , 17 ° 39 ′ 42 ″ E