The first day of November is a holiday that’s marked red in all calendars in Poland. It means it’s like Sunday, a day off work when everybody celebrates their members of family and friends who passed away. The holiday is a traditional and religious event called All Saints Day. Its tradition and celebrations go back deep in history and it’s very different from the Halloween.
Cemetery with rich decorated graves and expensive monuments in Grodzisk Mazowiecki in central Poland.
It’s also the day the whole nation travels from one corner of the country to another, back and forth, to visit the graves of their gone loved ones. It’s the day when most of the stores are closed but the businesses selling lights, candles and flowers intensify their activity in close proximity of cemeteries. The latter ones grow in size when accepting their recipients at the time when they are still alive. They like to secure their spots at the chosen places when engraving the monuments to their own memory with their birth dates and leave the day of their last day of life blank. The family will take care of engraving the remaining data among other, still expensive duties.
Lighting up the candles on the grave in Nadarzyn, Poland.
The cemeteries grow in beauty of monuments and the families of their forever gone loved ones are subject to special kind of a race when being pressed by others who have just contributed more money to a greater looking monument in the closest section of the cemetery. And the race goes on and on and the people are pressed to “keep up.”
Lined up lights at the collective tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the cemetery in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland.
In central Poland, in Grodzisk Mazowiecki and Nadarzyn near Warsaw, the situation is exactly like in any other cemetery in Poland in these days. The graves are being cleaned from fallen leaves and outgrown grass and equipped with new lights, candles and flowers, more often artificial ones, made in China, that have taken over traditional flowers of chrysanthemum. The plastic flowers are cheaper, last longer and don’t fade away in the time of the year when everybody expects the first frost to show up. This year the sunny and warm weather surprised everybody and made them rush more towards the cemeteries.
A monument with engraved birtdate when the date of death (after a tiny cross) is left blank, cemetery in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland.
Millions of Poles visited the cemeteries and great sunny weather made this event look like one and whole national picnic with colours, lights and the smell of candles and incense. Right outside the cemeteries local vendors were selling the decoration equipment for the graves and monuments during the atmosphere of picnic with sold balloons, sugar candy and tasty baking products. Car traffic is always horrible in these days and the areas around the cemeteries are really hard to navigate.
Former Primate of Poland (1981-2009), cardinal Jozef Glemp during the mass in the open air, Nadarzyn, Poland.
Nice dressed people rush in and out the cemeteries when carrying flowers, wraths, candles and lights. Often the cemeteries have small chapels in designated areas but when it’s necessary some make-shift chapels serve as catholic mass sites where local priests celebrate the ceremony along with the people. In the cemetery in Nadarzyn, former Primate of Poland (1981-2009), cardinal Jozef Glemp with the assist of his clergy was presiding over the mass in the open air.
Former Primate of Poland (1981-2009), cardinal Jozef Glemp with the assist of his clergy during the mass in the open air, cemetery in Nadarzyn, Poland.
Children putting lights at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier on the cemetery in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, central Poland.
A woman decorating the monument of a member of family, All Saints Day, cemetery in Nadarzyn, Poland.
On one of the cemeteries in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, there’s a monument commemorating the tragedy in the recent history of Poland. The major pilot of the plane that crashed near Smolensk on April 10th, 2010, Arkadiusz Protasiuk, is buried here. His granite-made monument is decorated with the red-and-white chessboard (the sign of Polish aviation) and is located at the main alley of the cemetery. His grave had a wrath donated by Polish President Bronislaw Komorowski.
The grave of Arkadiusz Protasiuk, the major pilot of the plane that crashed near Smolensk on April 10th, 2010, cemetery in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, near Warsaw, Poland.
Families and friends while visiting decorated graves of their loved ones who passed away, holiday of All Saints Day, cemetery in Nadarzyn, Poland.
All Saints Day on the cemetery in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Poland.
