Cmentarz w Palmirach

Description

The place of rest and memory of Poles murdered by the German occupant is located to the south of the village of Palmiry (municipality of Czosnów) in the area of the Kampinos National Park.

Deeper in the forest, on the so-called “death glade” of Palmiry, the Germans executed political prisoners transported from Warsaw – from the autumn of 1939 to the summer of 1941 over 20 mass executions of Poles and Jews were conducted here. It was here that between 20th and 21st June 1940 at least 358 prisoners from Pawiak were murdered as part of the AB action (Ausserordentliche Befriedungsaktion) which aimed at exterminating Polish intellectual and cultural elites.

After the end of the war Polish Red Cross teams began exhuming the victims in locations indicated by foresters – until the 2nd of June 1946 almost 1800 bodies were dug up. In 1948 a mausoleum-cemetery was established in Palmiry which became the resting place of, besides the above mentioned victims, 96 people executed in Szwedzkie Góry, 48 residents of Legionowo, 115 people killed in Laski, 83 people murdered on Wydmy Łuże, 102 victims executed near Stefanów and 15 people killed in Wólka Węglowa – the total number of victims of the German occupant resting here is 2200. 1973 was the year of a formal opening of a Museum of Struggle and martyrdom dedicated to the memory of the events of the September campaign in the area of the Kampinos forest and the death glade in Palmiry – in 1980 the museum became a branch of the Historical Museum of the Capital City of Warsaw.

The new Museum – Place of Remembrance Palmiry was opened on the 31st of March 2011 also as a branch of the Museum of Warsaw. At the entrance to the cemetery we can see words which were scratched on a wall by an unknown prisoner in a Gestapo cell on Szucha avenue: It’s easy to talk / about Poland / harder to / work for her / even harder to die / and hardest to suffer.

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