Municipal Cemetery on Panewnicka Street in Katowice

The municipal cemetery at Panewnicka 45 lies in the Ligota-Panewniki district, opposite the Franciscan basilica. It is tied to the basilica's history, and according to its administrator it is a typical historic Silesian cemetery, where current burials take place almost exclusively in multi-generational family graves.

History and layout

The first Franciscan friars were buried in the new cemetery in 1911, and the necropolis was consecrated on 23 January 1914. Its founder and benefactor was Nepomucen Wielebski, head of the municipality and district office in Ligota Pszczyńska and apostolic syndic of the nearby monastery; he rests by the mortuary, in the cemetery he founded.

The administrator states that the cemetery has more than 10,000 graves. In its central part plots were set aside for the Franciscans and for the Silesian Sisters Servants. There is also a funeral home that serves as a farewell chapel.

Mass graves and monuments

The cemetery contains a mass grave and monument to the defenders of Katowice: insurgents, boy and girl scouts murdered by the Germans in September 1939 in prisons, in forests and on the streets of the city. Separately stands a monument to the victims of Stalinism, a symbolic grave of soldiers and members of military independence organisations who died in 1945-1956.

Who is buried here

Among those buried are, among others, the sculptor Zygmunt Brachmański, the composer and teacher Bolesław Szabelski, the actor Bernard Krawczyk, the paediatrician Jolanta Wadowska-Król and many Franciscans, including several provincials of the order, scholars and a composer.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Panewnicka 45, Katowice-Ligota-Panewniki.
• Current hours of access to the cemetery and of the service office are given by the cemetery administrator.
• This is an active necropolis, so quiet and conduct appropriate to a cemetery are expected.
• Nearby: Zadole Park, about 900 m away.