Draft:Starofarny Cemetery in Bydgoszcz

Starofarny cemetery in Bydgoszcz
Cmentarz Starofarny w Bydgoszczy
Main entrance gate to the cemetery
Details
Established	1809
Location	Bydgoszcz
Country	Poland
Coordinates	53°07′37″N 17°59′01″E
Type	Public
Owned by	City of Bydgoszcz
Size	3.2 hectares (7.9 acres)
Website	Cmentarze Bydgoszcz

The Starofarny Cemetery in Bydgoszcz is the oldest Roman Catholic cemetery in this Polish city.

Location

The cemetery is located in the Okole district, west of the city center. The area has a roughly triangular shape, delineated to the north-east by the Grunwaldzka Street, to the north-west by the Wrocławska street and to the south by a segment of the Bydgoszcz Canal.

The burial site is situated in the green area of the urban Bydgoszcz Canal Park (Polish: Planty nad Kanałem Bydgoszczem).

During Prussian time, its address was Berlinerstrasse 13. Afterwards, the cemetery was located on Świętej Trójcy Street before bearing the current address at 15 Grunwaldzka street.

History

Prussian period

In 1808, the city council of then Bromberg purchased four Magdeburg Morgen of land (ca. 1 hectare (2.5 acres)) along the road leading to Szyszkówko (Polish: Czyżkówko, now a district of Bydgoszcz}}), with the intention of establishing a cemetery for the Roman Catholic inhabitants.

The sale of the plot was registered on 9 April 1808 and the entire transaction was completed in December 1808. This area was then transferred to the ownership of the Parish of Bydgoszcz. The first burials were carried out in 1811, as the Prussian authorities had issued a ban on burying the deceased in church cemeteries.

As a matter of fact, the Starofarny Cemetery was the first municipal Catholic cemetery detached from the parish premises: people from the city and the surroundings were buried there. In 1828, one of the abutting roads was transformed into a cobbled street leading to Nakło nad Notecią and Koronowo (i.e. the future Grunwaldzka Street).

Starofarny cemetery on a 1876 map

In 1855, the cemetery was expanded by 0.40 ha, thanks to the purchase buying of land from the Sowiński family for almost 78 thalers. In 1906, the site covered an surface of ​​1 ha, 42 ares and 50 square meters or 14,250 square metres (3.52 acres).

While Polish territory was progressively divided then disappeared from 1795 to 1920, the frequent funerals of distinguished citizens at the Starofamy cemetery were the occasions of patriotic demonstrations, especially during national uprisings (e.g. 1794, 1830-31). In 1877, with the incorporation of the Okole suburb into the territory of Bromberg, the burial site entered the city premises.

Until 1892, the cemetery was neither organized into sections nor graves numbered nor any regulations specified. There was only a division between burials in exposed places, more expensive than ordinary tombs.

Nowofarny and Starofarny cemeteries on a 1908 map

From the second half of the 19^th century on, the gravesite was enlarged and embellished:

• a new brick fence was built (1886);
• alleys were planted with of chestnuts, maples and lime trees (1892).

The site reached its full capacity at the beginning of the 20^th century, but Prussian regulations banned any establishment of new Catholic sacred facility and the cemetery could no longer be used.

In 1906, Father Ryszard Markwart, then parson of the only catholic parish of Bromberg, obtained permission from the Prussian authorities to establish a new parish cemetery on the northern outskirts of the city which would be called the New Parish Cemetery or Nowofarny Cemetery (Polish: Nowofarny Cmentarz): from that date, the previous gravesite has been called Old Parish Cemetery or Starofarny Cemetery.

Interwar period

In 1924, Edmund Dalbor, then Primate of Poland, endorsed the division of the Bydgoszcz Parish into six administrative units. As a consequence, the right to conduct burials in the Starofarny cemetery was granted to the Holy Trinity parish.

In 1936, the Municipal council adopted a resolution allowing the city to tend for the grave of the painter and patriot Maximilian Piotrowski, buried in the Starofarny site.

WWII years

During the Nazi occupation, the cemetery was repeatedly assaulted by the occupiers, aiming to destroy any signs of Polishness in the city. The German authorities issued an order to remove Polish inscriptions from the tombstones.

In addition, the graveyard was attacked by local Hitler Youth groups who destroyed Polish tombstones, covered up Polish inscriptions and damaged the fence. On an early morning of a Sunday of April 1942, the burial area was raided by SA and SS troops who smeared with cement Polish gravestone markings and destroyed grave metal objects. The damage was repaired after the conflict by the families of the deceased and the residents of the neighboring houses.

Polish People's Republic (1945-1989)

From 1945 to 1964, despite being full, the cemetery was still used for burials in family graves and in places of abandoned old graves from the 19^th century. On 11 July 1964, the last inhumation (late Henryk Barański) took place. On 15 July 1964, the necropolis was closed by decision of the Municipal People's Council of Bydgoszcz and renamed Communal Cemetery.

On 12 June 1977, a municipal plan to modernize the road network in the area of ​​the intersection of the streets Focha, Kruszwicka, Nakielska and Grunwaldzka impacted the cemetery. Indeed, the new street layout required part of the northern side of the site to be liquidated.

Demolition works began in 1978. They encompassed:

• the reconstruction of the fencing, as the 1909 original wall was demolished (alongside with the central gate);
• the demolition of chapels;
• the exhumation of some graves.

Much damage was done during the job:

• destruction of the historic (1663) chapel of the Divine Passion;
• loss ot many family tombs (Magdziński, Warmiński, Hennert, Poniecki, Schneider, Wirski);
• destruction of the cemetery caretaker's house (then at 17 Grunwaldzka street) and profanation of the remains of the deceased;
• razing of the Wollschleger's chapel, located to the left of the cemetery gate, with marble epitaph plaques on both sides of the door and a painting of Our Lady of Częstochowa in a glassed-in niche above the entrance. This chapel, featuring Neo-Gothic style, was one of the most original. It had been built of brick in 1885 and displayed, among others, an intricately forged grate in the entrance door and a crown-gable with a miniature figure of Christ based on the famous sculpture by Bertel Thorvaldsen.

The hand-forged grille that used to stand at the cemetery gate was returned to the Poor Clares' Church from where it had been taken after the latter was closed by the Prussians in the 19^th century. Other sectors of the cemetery witnessed unfortunate exhumations area as well, such as the Sergot family grave which granite tombstone disappeared.

In response to these events, a Social Committee for the Rescue of Monuments of the Starofarny Cemetery was set up in the late 1970s. Lead by architect Stefan Klajbor, the association succeeded in having the Starofarny cemetery entered into the register of monuments on 28 June 1983. In 1984, a plan for the tidying up, conservation and development of the site was drawn up and in 1985, the diocesan curia of Gniezno transferred freely the premises to the management of the city's administrative authorities.

Recent period

In 1991 the implementation of the cemetery's revalorisation plan began. It included the reconstruction of the fence, the conservation of the historic complex of 13 chapels - mausoleums, the tidying up of the French soldiers' quarters and the reconstruction of the 17th-century chapel. Since 1998 the works have been supported by funds collected by the society of Bydgoszcz during All Saints' Day. By 2009 the collected funds made it possible to renovate the fence and the tomb chapels. The donations collected in 2018 will be used to renovate the tomb of Marta Schulcówna, the Sitarka family and Kohn's tombstone.

In 1994 the city authorities reopened the cemetery for burials, especially of people distinguished for the city.

See also

• Bydgoszcz
• Ryszard Markwart
• Stefan Klajbor
• January Uprising
• Greater Poland uprising (1918–1919)

Bibliography

• (in Polish) Błażejewski, Stanisław; Kutta, Janusz; Romaniuk, Marek (1994). Bydgoski Słownik Biograficzny. Tom I [Bydgoszcz Biographical Dictionary]. Bydgoszcz: Kujawsko-Pomorskie Towarzystwo Kulturalne. pp. 87–88.