Poland will take care of its heroes graves

The renovation works at the War Rasos Cemetery with the “Mother and the Heart of Her Son” Mausoleum will begin in the spring next year. Tombstones and paths will be renovated, all the greenery will be replaced, and the lightening of the war quarter will be installed.

“The space near the tombstone of the Mausoleum will also be enlarged, because the visitors sometimes cannot fit in there”, said Maciej Dancewicz, the Chief of the Foreign Department of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites, during the interview with “Kurier Wileński”. On Wednesday, the delegation of the Council inspected the war quarter before its renovation. Meetings with the representatives of capital council and engineering committees also took place, where the final formalities before the planned renovation of the cemetery were agreed.

“Actually, we already have received all needed permissions and arrangements, but the weather in this year does not allow to begin the renovation works. Therefore, the works will probably begin in April next year”, informed us Maciej Dancewicz. As he pointed out, although they did not have any big problems with the formalities in the Lithuanian offices, the procedures are time-consuming, so the negotiations lasted about half a year.

The Chief of the Foreign Department of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites predicts that the renovation will take few months.

Although the main aim of the delegates of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites in Lithuania was the inspection of the matters of the renovation of the War Rasos Cemetery, Maciej Dancewicz with his co-workers visited also the Bernardine Cemetery in Užupis (part of Vilnius). During the inspection, the renovation of graves, which were renovated during last years in the Polish project of renovation of the Bernardine Cemetery, was assessed. The guests from Poland were shown around by the indefatigable guardian of the Polish graves on Lithuanian cemeteries, Jadwiga Pietkiewcz. She handed out the list of the Vilnius residents, whose remains during the Soviet occupation were removed from the Bernardine Columbary and buried near it, to the delegates of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites. It has been agreed that the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites will take care to honor the place, where so many great Polish people rest after their death.

“We know surnames of 20 buried people. We would like to place here a tombstone with these surnames and the description why and when their graves were desecrated. We need to yet negotiate this issue with the Lithuanian side”, promised Maciej Dancewicz. He did not rule out the possibility that during the next two years – for the 150^th anniversary – the graves of January Uprising veterans at the Bernardine Cemetery.

After the inspection of Vilnius cemeteries, the delegates of the Council for the Protection of Struggle and Martyrdom Sites went to Šalčininkai, where the renovation works are also planned, among others of the war quarter in Eišiškės, which in the future is to become the biggest war cemetery in this region.

Maciej Dancewicz informed us that the negotiations with the families of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army) soldiers, buried in the Rudnicka Wilderness, to move their remains to Eišiškės are conducted.

http://kurierwilenski.lt/2011/11/09/polska-zadba-o-litewskie-groby-swoich-bohaterow/

Tłumaczenie: Monika Mroczek, w ramach praktyk w Europejskiej Fundacji Praw Człowieka, www.efhr.eu

Translation by Monika Mroczek, as part of vocational training in The European Foundation of Human Rights, www.efhr.eu