Page 53 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Krakow

KR AK OW A T A GLANCE  51

which have been placed
here over hundreds of years.
The tombstones are engraved
with Hebrew inscriptions
and symbolic images that
identify the religion and
social rank of the deceased.
The dense accumulation
of tombstones within a tiny
and bare space contributes
to the unique character of
this Jewish cemetery.
Established in the 19th
century, the New Jewish
Cemetery was given, like
other cemeteries, a park-like
appearance. Tombstones The Vaza Crypt in Wawel Cathedral
are scattered over a wide area
and surrounded by luxuriant Church crypts were open to the Catacombs beneath the
vegetation. It is one of the public and transformed into church in Bielany are different.
few Jewish cemeteries in pantheons of Poland’s greatest Here, the corpses are laid at
Poland still in use. citizens. Wawel Cathedral’s first in niches cut out in a wall
Crypt contains the most solemn and then bricked up. Some
royal tombs of all. The crypt is years later the bones are
divided into galleries in which removed and placed in an
Polish rulers, leading poets and ossuary with the exception
national heroes rest. Tadeusz of the skull, which is taken
Kościuszko and Prince Józef by one of the monks for the
Poniatowski were interred purposes of contemplation.
here during the occupation The Camaldolese crypt
of Poland; President Lech strikingly shows that in the
Kaczyński and his wife, who face of death all are equal.
were killed in a plane crash in
2010, are also buried here.
Tombstones lined up in the small The Crypt in the Paulite
Remu’h Cemetery Church “On the Rock” is a
resting place for those who
made great contributions to the
Crypts with Tombs arts and sciences. The eminent
of Great Poles
historian Jan Długosz was
During the Partitions period buried here in the 15th century.
(1795–1918) a number of
celebrated Poles received
state funerals. These events Monastic Cemeteries
were intended to raise the The crypts found beneath
patriotic feelings of the monastic churches are
Polish people. unique to Krakow. Their
character reflects the unusual Mummified monks in the crypt of the
burial practices of particular Church of the Reformed Franciscans
religious orders.
The corpses in the Crypt in Finding Krakow’s
the Church of the Reformed
Franciscans have been Cemeteries
mummified naturally owing Camaldolese Catacombs p174
to the crypt’s construction Crypt in the Church of the
and ventilation. One can see Reformed Franciscans p112
here the corpses of poor friars Crypt in the Paulite Church
lying on sand with their heads “On the Rock“ p129
resting on a stone, as well as New Jewish Cemetery p125
lay people in rich clothes Rakowicki Cemetery Map 2 E1, 2
resting in elaborate coffins. Remu’h Cemetery pp124–5
The Angel of Vengeance on the Over 700 laymen and around Salwator Cemetery p173
Wawel Cathedral’s Crypt pp68–71
Monument to Victims of the 1848 250 Franciscan friars were
Bombardment of Krakow (1913) buried here. The Camaldolese