Cmentarze Status

Phase I of the project started in spring 2005 and ended with the publication of the last data in October 2005.

The idea was, to collect information about the known cemeteries and about the existing documentations. The goal was to create a kind of inventory of the cemeteries, so their current condition and their location could be kept in a central place.

Contributors:

Maciek Barciński,
Jutta Dennerlein,
Maciej Jaworski,
Paweł Kowalski,
Annegret Krause,
Witold Paszt,
Johannes Vogt-Krause,
Hanna Witt-Pasztowa.

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First information about known cemeteries were collected on site. Experiences in finding the cemeteries were made.

Results were documented on site as descriptions of the cemeteries, pictures and descriptions of the monuments and noted inscriptions.

A 1987 documentation was found for the cemetery of Płock: Ewidencja Zabytków Ruchomych Cmentarz Płock. The pictures of this documentation were integrated into the documentation.

A data structure for the gathered information was created from the different kinds of documentation.

A database was developed and a website for the publication of the collected results was created.

Phase II of the project started in January 2006 and ended with the publication of the new data in September 2006.

The plan was to find more of the old Lutheran cemeteries by finding cemeteries on the new Polish 1:100.000 maps and checking on site, what kind of cemetery it was. Several selection criterias were used to eliminate the new municipal cemeteries from the list of cemeteries to check on site.

Contributors:

Maciek Barciński,
Jürgen Bomert,
Jutta Dennerlein,
Michał Jastrzębski,
Iris King,
Paweł Kowalski,
Annegret Krause,
Johannes Vogt-Krause,
Artur Witkowski.

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The selection criteria turned out to work pretty good. Only the criteria "very remote location" brought up many more cemeteries than expected. Many of the newly created cemeteries in Poland seem to be located rather far from the villages or cities and the maps often don't show the broad access roads that have recently been created to reach them. So the impression of a remote cemetery is created while looking at a map only.

Many of the remote cemeteries in the area of the river Bzura turned out to be war cemeteries.

Some of the cemeteries on the list had already been visited and described by Michał Jastrzębski and Artur Witkowski in an updated version of their "Cmentarze" document. They agreed to share their pictures and documentation of the cemeteries with this project. Many thanks to Michał Jastrzębski and Artur Witkowski!

A new information type was added by taking the geogrphical coordinates of the cemeteries and adding it to the documentation.

The location of the cemeteries was shown using clippings of the new Polish 1:100.000 maps on the website. We got the permission to do so from Col. Eugeniusz Sobczyński Chief of the Military Geography Division of J2 Polish Armed Forces General Staff.

Phase III of the project started in January 2007 and ended with the publication of the data in April 2008.

The goal was to find more cemeteries by using the 1919 - 1939 topographic maps published by the Polish Military Geographical Institute, the Wojskowego Instytutu Geografycznego. These very detailed maps showed a promising amount of cemeteries.

Contributors:

Ursula Barsch,
Erik Buchholz,
Jutta Dennerlein,
Günther Fuchs,
Paweł Kowalski,
Annegret Krause,
Andrzej Nejman,
Johannes Vogt-Krause.

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By using the detailed old maps and the very good scans provided by the Polish MapyWig Project during the preparation of the work on site, the list of cemeteries for several areas looked complete. Additional research in literature brought up some more cemeteries, created after the WIG maps were printed.

The usage of the GPS system in connection with the 80 years old maps worked excellent.

Several of the cemeteries covered in earlier phase were visited again to collect the geographic coordinates. This second visit within a short time showed that many of the cemeteries now were marked and in many cases the bushes had been removed.

For some of the cemeteries it was only possible to locate them. The documentation was left for another field session.

Additional cemeteries were documented by contributors, who had travelled in areas which were at first sight a bit far from the Vistula.

The documentation was extended to cover these additional areas. The type of cemeteries shown was also extended to give room for old Polish cemeteries, the military cemeteries and the Jewish cemeteries we came across.