Zapomniane sacrum : cmentarze ludności niemieckiej i żydowskiej jako problem społeczno-kulturowy współczesnego miasta

Abstract

In the Christian culture, a cemetery is a special place, a memory place of those who died, a place symbolically marked with specific forms of small architecture, sculpture, engraved in the stone of an often poetical informative‑documentary transcription. It is a unique place, protected with a centuries‑old tradition and common respect, but also law agreements. The landscape of Polish cities involves historical necropolis of other beliefs or ethnic minorities. The centuries‑old tradition of Polish tolerance facilitated the creation of a special cultural symbiosis based on the co‑existence of ethnic minorities or ethnic groups in the space of the Polish cities. They left precious monuments of the material and sacred culture. The process of social and cultural spacious changes in the contemporary Polish cities also concerns the small cemetery architecture. On the one hand, one can observe its enrichment, and, on the other hand, destruction, especially in old, less‑known cemetery spaces. Many monuments, including cemeteries, have not survive up till now. The very article is documentary in nature and presents the author’s observations on the cemeteries of German and Jewish people within the period of a few last years, their history and the current state, situated in the landscape of Polish cities. The studies covered some of the places in the Silesian, Lower‑Silesian, Małopolska, Świętokrzyskie, Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie voivodship.