Powązki Cemetery

Powązki Cemetery

This cemetery is as big as the Vatican City - 44 hectares! It was one of the first necropoleis in Europe and was established in 1790. The land was offered by district leader, Melcior Szymanowski, as a "field" burial site - until then the dead had been buried in church catacombs or in small cemeteries in church grounds. Powązki Cemetery is located between Okopowa, Powąkowski and Tatarska Streets and is one of 6 objects belonging to the largest Warsaw necropolis - the Communal and Military Cemeteries in Powązki and the Evangelical, Jewish, Calvinist and Muslim Cemeteries. The graves of over 1 million people are here including those of well-known and distinguished Poles - politicians, actors, scientists, writers and social activists. The parents of Frederic Chopin were buried here as well as Stanisław Moniuszko, Władysław Reymont, Bolesław Leśmian, Kalina Jędrusik, Krzysztof Komeda and Hanka Bielicka among others. During the war Jews, on the run from the Gestapo, hid in the catacombs and the resistance gathered arms and kept them in the crypts and tombs. During the Uprising, battles took place among the gravestones. The whole terrain of the cemetery is under the protection of the Capital's Conservation of Monuments Office.