Powązki Cemetery

Powazki Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, 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." It 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 1944 uprising against the Nazis duringWorld War II.

Like many of the old European cemeteries, Powazki’s tombstones were created by some of the most renowned Polish sculptors thaty depicts the different styles of architecture and sculpture at various times in history.

November 1st is On "All Soul's Day" in Poland. In Warsaw, vigils are held not only in the Roman Catholic cemeteries, but in the Protestant, Muslim and Orthodox cemeteries as well. At Powazki cemetery, all the graves are decorated with candles.

A few of the notables buried here are:

• Ignacy Dobrzynski, (1807-1867) composer
• Christopher Komeda, (1931-1969), jazz composer
• Krzysztof Kieslowski, Film director
• Witold Lutoslawski, composer
• Ignacy Paderewski, Pianist
• Stefan Mazurkiewicz, co-founder of the Warsaw school of mathematics
• Stanislaw Moniuszko, composer
• Marian Rajewski, WW II hero - code breaker (Enigma)
• Wladyslaw Reymont, Nobel Prize winning author
• Waclaw Sierpinski, co-founder of the renowned Warsaw school of mathematics
• Stanislaw Sosabowski Military General
• Henryk Wieniawski, composer
• Kazimierz Wierzynski, (1894-1969), poet and writer

The Jewish Cemetery, located 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:

• Simon Ashkenazi, archaeologist,
• Mathias Bersohn, philanthropist,
• Adam Czerniakow founder of the first steamboat line on the Vistula Maurycy Fajans,
• Jacob Dinezon, writer
• Esther R. Kaminska. Actress
• 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, and doctor and inventor of esperanto.
• Solomon Anski, writer (Solomon Zangwill Rappaport), author of "The Dibbuk"