Cemetery on ulica Francuska in Katowice

The Roman Catholic cemetery on ulica Francuska in Katowice was founded in 1870 when the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built. It is one of the oldest necropolises in the city and in the interwar period was its most prestigious cemetery. It is still in use, and the parish manages it.

Layout of the cemetery

On the south it borders the Lutheran cemetery on the same street. Both were entered in the heritage register in 1993. By the street stands a Neo-Gothic building of the former mortuary with the gravedigger's flat. In the centre is the chapel of St Joseph from 1924, funded by Canon Fr Józef Cieśla, whose grave is in its lower level. By the fence on the side of the Lutheran cemetery stands a sculpture of a Pietà.

Who is buried here

The cemetery is the resting place of people connected with the history of Upper Silesia: Wojciech Korfanty, an independence leader, Józef Rymer, leader of the Third Silesian Uprising and the first Silesian voivode, and Adam Didur, founder of the Silesian Opera. Also here is the grave of Konstanty Wolny, the first Marshal of the Silesian Sejm, whose remains were brought from Lviv in 2012. Zygmunt Sowiński, an industrialist and member of parliament, died in Dachau, so his grave is symbolic. Also buried here are, among others, Napoleon Siess, conductor and director of the Silesian Opera, and the footballer and Olympian Spirydion Albański.

Practical information

• Address: ulica Francuska 26, Katowice, near the Katowice History Museum.
• The cemetery is active, so the behaviour appropriate to a burial place applies.