Wo manchmal die Gebeine bleichen

The status of cemeteries in European culture is unique. Tombs with inscriptionsinforming about the names of the buried are peculiar examples of historical documentswhich persuasively illustrate the history of a given region by revealing thetruth about the nationality, religious beliefs, and social status of the buried. Thus,cemeteries become unique reservoirs of memory, sometimes turning into objects ofideologically biased interest and even destruction. That was the case of the Protestantcemeteries in Poland which suffered as a result of historical ideologization affectingthe regions formerly populated by Germans. A metaphorical account of thatprocess can be found in The Call of the Toad, a novel by Günter Grass.However, the problem is much more complicated. Since the 19th century changesin urban planning of European cities resulted in transforming cemeteries into parks.Various developments of this kind can be observed in Poznań, where till 1939 cemeterieswere connected to particular confessions, and, with an exception of the garrisoncemetery, there were no burying grounds open to all. The cemeteries which belongedto parishes and communities were taken over by the city and gradually transformedinto parks, except the historic ones (the Roman Catholic cemetery on Wzgórze Św.Wojciecha, the Protestant Holy Cross cemetery on Ogrodowa St., and the Jewishcemetery on Głogowska St.). Such changes required a proper waiting period from themoment of the burying ground’s closing to its final disappearance. Fifty years afterthe last burial a cemetery could be officially taken over by the city. Transformationswhich began at the beginning of the 20th century were continued in the 1930s, to becompleted in the 1950s.Under the Nazi occupation, the decrees of the administrator of the Warthegaumade it possible for the city to take over the confessional cemeteries (Roman Catholic,Jewish, and Protestant). Those regulations remained valid after World War II. TheCity Council took over Protestant and Jewish cemeteries, and removed some RomanCatholic ones. Some of them have been transformed into parks. Consequently, all theProtestant and Jewish cemeteries, and some Roman Catholic ones, disappeared fromthe city map in 1945–1973. Most of them have been changed into parks and squares.The Protestant cemeteries were considered German and the parks located on suchareas received significant names, e.g., Victory Park, Partisans’ Park, etc. Cemeterieswere often being closed in a hurry and until today on some construction sites contractorscan find human bones.