A Polish foundation has launched a mobile app that allows people to document abandoned cemeteries they encounter in order to build a database of forgotten burial grounds in the Poland and the wider region.
“Thanks to the app, everyone can contribute to the social database of abandoned cemeteries in Poland and abroad as part of the Forgotten Cemeteries project,” says the Cultural Heritage Foundation, which has restored 395 gravestones since launching in 2012.
The foundation notes that it is easy to stumble upon cemeteries of various denominations in rural areas in Poland as well as in neighbouring countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Such places have often fallen into neglect after the communities they were used by were killed or displaced during the region’s tumultuous history.
“These smaller necropolises are often places we come across by accident – during hiking trips to a forest or on smaller roads between villages,” writes the organisation.
A glimpse of #Poland’s oldest mosque in Kruszyniany. A Tatar grave in the nearby mizar (cemetery) was marked 1699. pic.twitter.com/t9XPAc6KnI
— Maria Wilczek (@mariawilczek) July 22, 2020
The database created by the “Cmentariusz” app – which is available for free on Google Play and Apple’s App Store, and can also be used through a web browser – will include information about the sites – such as their location and size – as well as photographs and details of graves, including inscriptions and dimensions.
“We know from experience that very valuable monuments can be found in hidden or rarely visited places,” adds Michal Laszczkowski, who heads the foundation.
“I have visited cemeteries that were very neglected and gave the impression that no one looked after them,” said Hela, a volunteer quoted by the foundation, who noted that photos from such places are “lost if they are not published anywhere”.
The aim of the app is thus to bolster the foundation’s conversation efforts, which have included renovation of the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw. The information will also be collated at the Forgotten Cemeteries website.
Thanks to the database, “other people will be able to find a cemetery, visit it and organise cleaning actions in the future”, says the foundation.
Main image credit: Chris/Flickr (under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Maria Wilczek is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She is a regular writer for The Times, The Economist and Al Jazeera English, and has also featured in Foreign Policy, Politico Europe, The Spectator and Gazeta Wyborcza.
