Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress, photo Rada OPWiM, 2010
Licence: all rights reserved
Photo montrant Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress
Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress, photo MKiDN, 2017
Licence: all rights reserved
Photo montrant Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress
Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress, photo MKiDN, 2017
Licence: all rights reserved
Photo montrant Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress
Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress, photo MKiDN, 2017
Licence: all rights reserved
Photo montrant Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress
Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress, photo MKiDN, 2017
Licence: all rights reserved
Photo montrant Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress
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ID: WOJ-000178-W (BY-0159)

Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress

ID: WOJ-000178-W (BY-0159)

Polish Garrison Cemetery within Brest Fortress

The cemetery was established in 1921 on the northern edge of the Kobrin fort. It was created from the relocation of the World War I war cemetery, located next to the parish church, from 3-go Maja Street. It was located 100 m east of the old garrison Russian cemetery. It covered an area of 2 ha at the time. Soldiers and officers working in the Brest Fortress were buried in this cemetery. After the outbreak of World War II, several Polish soldiers who defended the fortress against the Soviets in September 1939 were buried here. Seventeen names of these soldiers are known, but they were not commemorated by name due to opposition from the Belarusian authorities. On the basis of the Brest parish books, it has been established that 5 people who were shot and died on 22 and 23 June 1941 in the Rzeczyca colony are also buried in this cemetery. They are: Zbigniew Sluzowiecki (killed by a bullet), Stanislaw Feodorko (shot), Jozef Czyż (shot), Jozef Mieczyslaw Czyż (shot) and Edward Sluzowiecki (died of a heart stroke). The cemetery occupies the left (smaller) part of the necropolis on Gierojów Street. A separate entrance leads to it, where an information board with the inscription: "Polish garrison cemetery". The reconstructed cemetery has more than 550 nameless crosses, 3 named crosses, 11 Orthodox crosses and 86 old reconstructed graves, as well as two mass graves of Polish soldiers who defended Brest against the Red Army in 1939 - there are 656 graves in total. In 1944, after the takeover of the city by the Soviet authorities, a site was ordered to be marked out for a cemetery for the heroes of the Soviet Union and for officers of the senior staff and party activists. The new cemetery was located between the two garrison cemeteries (Polish and Russian). As the new cemetery began to grow, it "absorbed" the garrison cemeteries. The Russian garrison cemetery from the 19th century ceased to exist, with only a few tombstones surviving. The same fate befell the Polish garrison cemetery, which was finally closed down in 1985. In 1995 the bushes were cut down and it turned out that only four tombstones of individual soldiers from the Brest garrison, who died in the 20th inter-war period (Tadeusz Liwski, Edmund Jaworski, Telesfor Kaniasty and Stefan Zasadziński) and a tombstone commemorating the soldiers from the 35th IR killed on 1.11.1935, survived. During the renovation of the cemetery carried out in 2000, from the funds of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, two mass graves of soldiers killed in September 1939 were marked out. All the Polish graves in the cemetery received identical crosses, only three of them are named. On 10.11.2000, the main commemoration was unveiled in the cleaned up cemetery. The area of the Polish quarters was divided by two intersecting alleys. The grave fields contain a variety of headstones, situated without any plan, and include civilian and military graves, as well as a few Russian graves. The unnamed military crosses, erected today, also lack symmetry. In the central part there is a cross standing on sharp boulders, next to it there is a contemporary inscription board with the inscription: "To the memory of the soldiers of the Polish Army / of the Brest garrison from the years 1921-1939 / defenders of the Brest Fortress / fallen in September 1939 / resting in this cemetery / Compatriots 2000. ROPWiM". At the back behind the main commemoration the remains of old crosses with inscriptions are blended into the pavement. On 4.10.2001 Professor Andrzej Kola exhumed the remains of a Polish Army officer killed in September 1939 and buried on private property in Wierzbowa Street. The remains were buried in the garrison cemetery - the grave was located at the intersection of cemetery alleys. An inscription was placed on the grave: "Unknown Polish Army officer, killed in September 1939. From 1939 to 2001 he was laid to rest in Brześć, Wierzbowa Street." In 2009. The General Consulate of the Republic of Poland in Brest identified and restored the grave of Sgt. Waclaw Borucki of the 6th sapper battalion, stationed in the military garrison of the Brest Fortress in the interwar period. Borucki died in 1935. Thanks to a surviving photograph of the grave from 1935, it was possible to identify the tombstone, which until recently had been nameless. The grave showed signs of damage - the name plate was missing, the cross crowning the monument was missing, the symbols of the military unit were barely legible, the concrete of the gravestone was overgrown with moss. After the tombstone had been cleaned and conserved, an inscription board with a Polish inscription was placed on it (with the permission of the local authorities).

Publikacja:
20.09.2022
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