Powazki Cemetery
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Powązki Cemetery (Polish Cmentarz powązkowski) is the oldest and most famous cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, which is situated in the western part of the city. It contains a mausoleum with memorials to many of the greats in Polish history including many interred since 1925 along the "Avenue of the Meritorious" (Aleja Zasłużonych, est. 1925)). It has also a very large military section for the graves of those who fought and died for their country in the past 200 years including the large number of those involved in the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis during World War II, the Battle of Warsaw and the September Campaign.
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As a matter of fact, the Powązki is a necropoly consisting of a whole complex of cemeteries. In 1790 most cemeteries in the Warsaw city centre were closed due to sanitary reasons and a new Catholic cemetery in the western suburb of Powązki was created. Soon afterwards several other cemeteries were founded in the area: Jewish, Calvinist, Lutheran, Caucassian and Tatar. Not far away from the Powązki necropoly, the Orthodox cemetery is located.
The lates addition to the complex was the so-called Military cemetery, currently known as the Communal cemetery. It was founded in 1912 as an annex to the Catholic cemetery, but after Poland regained her independence in 1918 it became the state cemetery, where some of the most notable people of the epoch were buried, regardless of their faith. Like many of the old European cemeteries, Powązki's tombstones were created by some of the most renowned sculptors of the era, both Polish and foreign. Some of them are excellent examples of various styles in architecture and art.
On Zaduszki (November 1) in Warsaw, vigils are held not only in the Roman Catholic cemeteries, but in the Protestant, Muslim, Jewish and Orthodox cemeteries as well. At Powązki cemetery, all the graves are decorated with candles.
A large part of the Powązki Cemetery is occupied by graves of Polish soldiers who fell in the Warsaw Uprising. Most of the graves were exhumated between 1945 and 1953 from the streets of Warsaw. In many cases the name of the soldiers remains unknown and the graves are marked only by the number of the Polish Red Cross identification number. Until the early 1950s, brothers in arms of many fallen soldiers organised exhumation of their colleagues on their own and there are many quarters where soldiers of specific units are buried. There are also several mass graves of (mostly unknown) civilian victims of German terror during World War II and the Warsaw Uprising located in the cemetery.
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Notable people
A few of the notables buried here are:
- Bolesław Bierut (1892-1956), communist leader
- Wojciech Bogusławski, writer, actor, director
- Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, (1829-1901) writer
- Ignacy Dobrzyński, (1807-1867) composer
- Władysław Gomułka, communist
- Stefan Jaracz (1883-1945), actor
- Jacek Kaczmarski (1957-2004), poet and singer
- Jan Kiepura, singer and actor
- Krzysztof Kieślowski, (1941-1996) film director
- Jan Kiliński
- Stefan Kisielewski, art critic and writer
- Krzysztof Komeda, (1931-1969), jazz composer
- Ryszard Kukliński (1930-2001), "Cold War" masterspy
- Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004), historian, dissident and one of the Solidarity leaders
- Samuel Bogumił Linde, lexicologist and professor of the Polish language
- Tadeusz Lomnicki (1927-1992), actor
- Witold Lutosławski, composer
- Witold Malcuzynski (1914-1977), classical pianist
- Stefan Mazurkiewicz, co-founder of the Warsaw school of mathematics
- Stanisław Moniuszko, composer
- Witold Pilecki, (1901-1948), freedom fighter
- Kazimierz Porębski (1872-1933), vice-admiral
- Bolesław Prus (1847-1912), writer
- Marian Rejewski, (1905-1980)- WW II hero, Enigma machine code breaker
- Władysław Reymont, (1867-1925), Nobel Prize winning author
- Leon Schiller, writer, art critic and theatre theoretician
- Wacław Sierpiński, (1882-1969) mathematician
- Edward Rydz-Śmigły, Marshal of Poland and Polish chief of state 1935-1939
- Stanisław Sosabowski, general
- Władysław Szpilman (1911-2000), pianist
- Karol Świerczewski, general and a communist war hero
- Michal Karaszewicz-Tokarzewski (1893-1964), general
- Julian Tuwim (1894-1953), poet
- Jerzy Waldorff, art critic and one of the beneficiaries of the cemetery
- Henryk Wieniawski, composer
- Kazimierz Wierzyński, (1894-1969), poet and writer
- Stanisław Wojciechowski, president of Poland
- Ludwik Zamenhof, creator of Esperanto
- Aleksander Zelwerowicz, actor and director, patron of the Theatre Academy in Warsaw
- Stefan Żeromski, writer
- Jan Zumbach (1915-1986), fighter ace
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The Jewish Cemetery, located on Okopowa Street next to the Protestant Cemetery and near the Powazki necropolis, was established between 1799 and 1806. Some of the prominent Jewish citizens buried here are:
- Szymon Askenazy, archaeologist,
- Mathias Bersohn, philanthropist,
- Adam Czerniakow, was the head of the Judenrat in the Warsaw Ghetto
- Maurycy Fajans, founder of the first steamboat line on the Vistula
- Jacob Dinezon (1852-1919), writer
- Esther Rachel Kaminska (1870-1925), the "mother of Yiddish Theater", mother of Ida Kaminska
- Janusz Korczak (1878-1942), (symbolic grave), children's writer and educator
- Samuel Orgelbrand, publisher of the Universal Encyclopaedia,
- Isaac Loeb Peretz, writer
- Hipolit Wawelberg, founder of Warsaw Technical College,
- Ludwik Zamenhof, doctor and inventor of esperanto.
- Solomon Anski, writer (Solomon Zangwill Rappaport), author of "The Dibbuk"
Gallery
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