Communist memorials in Poland

You mean people would walk on people's graves??

They wouldn't be graves any more.

What is or isn't buried 6 feet below the lawn is by the by.

As mentioned, Poland has a specific cultural relationship to graveyards that most places don't have. It surprised me that some people there don't want to live next to a cemetery; in the UK a house next to one would probably cost a bit more than a similar one elsewhere, due to being somewhere quiet and green.

There is some precedent for it in PL; the German cemetery in Tarnowo Podgórne had the stones removed and was turned into a park many decades ago.

That`s the old Slavic tradition of honouring the dead. Called Dziady, made immortal by Mickiewicz`s poetry. Following it, you can come to the cemetery and talk to souls.


That was the time when Germans were still viewed as enemies. What was and isn`t anymore, it isn`t taken into account - an old saying of Polish bees. .

For me they would be, if there were people buried there...

Since I was a kid I was taught not to walk on graves, not to step on them or walk over them, because that's disrespectful.

Maybe that's why graves in Poland usually look like this:



And not like this:



At the cemetery in the countryside where my relatives are buried there are all kinds of graves - made of stone or just a pile of sand with a cross, but they're always the size of a human and noone walks on them no matter how old and neglected they are. Some are clearly that old that probably there are no relatives to tend to them anymore, but still you know they're there, even if there's no cross left, because there's greenery growing on them surrounded by a path made by people who's been walking around it for years.

I would feel uncomfortable walking on a grass in such a park knowing that there are dead people lying there.

Me too. I then made an adjustment for cleaning the grave etc.

When was that? Do you know?

Within about 20 years after WW2.

Was that a civilian or a war cemetery?

Civilian.
opencaching.pl/viewcache.php?wp=OP3C77

A small town near Poznań - Tarnowo Podgórne was settled in 1895 by 60 German families, who, along with Polish residents, lived there until the end of World War II. Both nations retained their faith, culture and customs, also maintaining good mutual relations. After the war, the authorities of the Polish People's Republic quietly consented to the liquidation of all German remnants in Poland. One of the many victims of this policy was the former German Evangelical cemetery in Tarnowo Podgórne. After 50 years of destruction and looting, the place of eternal rest of the dead turned into a rubbish dump overgrown with bushes. And it would probably be in such a state to this day, had Kazimierz Szulc not lived with his family in Tarnowo Podgórne. His initiative, stubbornness and perseverance led to the transformation of this place into a Memorial Park which is a symbol of Polish-German reconciliation and a sign of ecumenism and tolerance of Evangelicals and Catholics. With his inquisitiveness, he reached people whose ancestors lived and were buried in Tarnowo Podgórne. The tombstones that survived were repaired, the people buried in the cemetery were cataloged (the list of the deceased and other documents were walled up in a special tube in the wall with a commemorative plaque.) The nearly hundred-year-old oak cemetery cross was repaired and preserved. In the center of the cemetery, a statue of Mother with Two Children was placed on a pedestal, made and donated by the German sculptor Arthur Schlender. The figure of a mother holding two children in her arms has a symbolic dimension. Today, the Memorial Park in Tarnowo Podgórne lives a new life - it is visited both by German families finding their roots and by current residents looking for a break in this charming and thought-provoking place.

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...nice and interesting story, thank you!

I used to work very near there. I didn't know the full story of the park's history however I knew it had been a German cemetery and sometimes went for a walk there.

They also 'baroquised' the gothic church.

In my home town one of the parks was a cementary in the past. All the remains were dug out. My mom remembers seeing the works going on in there

A few years they were digging up streetcar tracks by a park near where I work.... well the park used to be a cemetery and work on the tracks disturbed some coffins, they fenced off the area but where the archeoligists were working was visible and there was a crowd for several days as they collected and catalogued the contents... very interesting to see

Well, this is life. When I sometimes visit ancient historical cemeteries, I see old decrepit tombstones which are 100, 150 years old and there is nobody to take care of them. We are just ash and will turn into ash one day, blown by the wind in all directions.

The removal campaign gained momentum. Today morning, local councils in a dozen locations in Poland sent diggers and bulldozers to remove some of 30 Soviet memorials still remaining in the country. At last.

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The russians will not like it.

Good!

Sane people shouldn't like it, either.
If it's OK to remove the evidence of communism, why not the evidence of fascism? Let's get rid of Auschwitz and make it into an LGBTQ pride park, bathhouse, and museum. The tourism business would explode.

@Novichok
Even today there are 1,0 -1,5 mln. tourists every year in Auschwitz.

The communist memorials which are being removed today propagated the myth of the Red Army and Soviets in general as liberators, While in fact they were just another occupier in Poland. Less murderous than Nazis but still an occupier. That is why it is correct to dismantle those monuments. It should have been done decades ago.


Not really. There is no myth or falsity connected with it which needs to be abolished. Everything what happened there was tragically real. So, it should stay as a warning to future generations. Simple.

If you engage your intellect for a while, you will admit I am right. Will you??? :):):)


I thought Ams were tougher. :):):) I visited it as a child.