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.

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.

A few of the notables buried here are:

• Boleslaw Bierut (1892–1956), communist leader
• Lucyna Ćwierczakiewiczowa, (1829–1901) writer
• Ignacy Dobrzyński, (1807–1867) composer
• Stefan Jaracz (1883–1945), actor
• Jacek Kaczmarski (1957–2004), poet and singer
• Krzysztof Kieślowski, (1941–1996) film director
• 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
• 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
• Witold Pilecki, (1901–1948), soldier

• Bolesław Prus (1847–1912), writer
• 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
• Władysław Szpilman (1911–2000), pianist
• Julian Tuwim (1894–1953), poet
• 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.
• Solomon Anski, writer (Solomon Zangwill Rappaport), author of "The Dibbuk"

See also:

• List of other famous cemeteries
• Warsaw