Warsaw. 50th collection at Stare Powązki

For the first time, collections were held at Stare Powązki in 1974 on the initiative of Jerzy Waldorff. The campaign has been ongoing for 50 years and this year it was included on the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Thanks to the funds collected during all collections, over 1,700 historic tombstones and chapels were renovated. This year's collection will last until November 3.

Actress Maja Komorowska has been collecting money at Powązki for 50 years, only once did she miss the action when she took part in a film shot abroad. – It was Waldorff's big idea. I remember how he always called before November 1 and referred to us as “cemetery stars”. The people who come with children are the most heartwarming. It is very important to maintain memory. It is also valuable that we can stop for a moment in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, Komorowska said on Friday at Powązki Cemetery.

As the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage reminds, Powązki is one of the oldest and most recognizable necropolises in Poland, established on land donated by the Szymanowski family as a response to the closing of traditional burial places inside cities, in church or hospital areas. “Since the 19th century, it has become the resting place of Warsaw's elites, including artists, writers, military men and politicians. During the partition period, it served as the National Pantheon,” it added.

In 1925, the Avenue of Merit was established along the southern wall of the catacombs. The row of graves in the Avenue was opened by the resting place of Władysław Reymont, the author of “Peasants” – winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. Here is the symbolic grave of Stefan Starzyński, the pre-war president of Warsaw, the heroic defender of the capital in September 1939, murdered by the Germans. President Ignacy Mościcki and the leaders of the Polish Underground State also have symbolic graves here. Pilots Franciszek Żwirko and Stanisław Wigura have their graves. Artists, theater and film people, poets, among others, are buried here. Stefan Jaracz, Józef Węgrzyn, Jadwiga Smosarska, Kalina Jędrusik, Józef Elsner, Stanisław Moniuszko, Jan Kiepura, Leopold Staff, Bolesław Leśmian.

After World War II, many monuments of the Old Powązki Cemetery fell into disrepair. Director of the National Museum in Warsaw, art historian prof. Stanisław Lorenz tried to interest the Ministry of Culture and Art in the condition of the necropolis. When he found no response, he turned to the music critic Jerzy Waldorff with a request to organize a social committee to save the cemetery.