Powazki Cemetery
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). 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.
Like many of the old European cemeteries, Powązki's tombstones were created by some of the most renowned Polish sculptors that depict the different styles of architecture and sculpture at various times in history.
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. The candelight image shown is that of the memorial for Krzysztof Kieślowski.
A few of the notables buried here are:
- Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, (1829-1901) writer
- Ignacy Dobrzyński, (1807-1867) composer
- Jacek Kaczmarski (1957-2004), poet and singer
- Krzysztof Kieślowski, (1941-1996) film director
- Krzysztof Komeda, (1931-1969), jazz composer
- Jacek Kuroń (1934-2004), historian, dissident and one of the Solidarity leaders
- Tadeusz Lomnicki (1927-1992), actor
- Witold Lutosławski, composer
- Witold Malcuzynski (1914-1977), classical pianist
- Stefan Mazurkiewicz, co-founder of the Warsaw school of mathematics
- Stanislaw Moniuszko, composer
- Marian Rejewski, (1905-1980)- WW II hero, Enigma machine code breaker
- Władysław Reymont, (1867-1925), Nobel Prize winning author
- Wacław Sierpiński, (1882-1969) mathematician
- Stanisław Sosabowski, general
- Henryk Wieniawski, composer
- Kazimierz Wierzyński, (1894-1969), poet and writer
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"
- 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.
- List of other famous cemeteries
- Warsaw