Cmentarz Starofarny Bydgoszcz

About

The Starofarny Cemetery is i cemetery in Bydgoszcz, Poland. It is the oldest Roman Catholic cemetery in Bydgoszcz. It has been registered on the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship Heritage List.

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.

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).

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 a 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, 1830–1831 ). 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.

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

- alleys were planted with of chestnuts, maples and lime trees (1892). The site reached its full capacity at the beginning of the 20th 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.

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.

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.

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 19th 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: