cmentarz parafialny (trzeci) w Drzewicy (od 1796)

The cemetery in Drzewica is not such a gallery of stonemasonry as in Żarnów, Białaczów, Przysucha or Szydłowiec, but it has its own style and illustrates the history of the town where a lot happened - we can find here graves of landowners, graves of industrialists (the Kobylański family - the owners of pre-war "Gerlach" and technical staff from abroad - including Scots), representatives of the nineteenth-century Russian administration. The cemetery - like most parish cemeteries is about 200 years old, it was built after the Third Partition of Poland, when the Austrians (who ruled here in 1795-1809) ordered the burials to be moved outside the cemetery around the church. A simple calculation that about 10 generations of the inhabitants of trees are already buried in this cemetery (probably about 10,000 people). And where are the previous 25 generations? Well, just like everywhere - around the church ..., a small part (from the 16th century) on the river, where in the 16th century there was the church of St. Stanisław and a small Bernardine monastery (which burnt down in 1675). There are also graves of soldiers from World War I and II in this cemetery, but few are buried here. Of course, there are no Jewish graves - the Jewish cemetery was destroyed almost everywhere by .. unknown perpetrators .. under German supervision 80 years ago. It was located (in the years 1862-1942) just behind the wall of the Catholic cemetery and continued to the "Gielniów road" (for 700 years the main road leading from Drzewica south, from the ford on Drzewiczka towards Brzustowiec - Stara Wieś and further) but there is no after him even a symbolic trace. However, it was fenced in the 90s by the priest of the parish of St. Łukasz, it's also a cemetery. It is interesting that in the Catholic cemetery most of the graves were made of sand, marked with a cross, most often wooden (only the most distinguished could afford stone or cast-iron monuments), while in the Jewish cemetery, almost every grave had a sandstone matzeva. These matzevot were knocked over from 1942 and then began to disappear, the last ones disappeared several years after the war. Where did they go? .. ;-) And today the parish cemetery is being expanded in "this" direction. Along Kolejowa Street (the railway - Railway line No. 22 - was built only as a result of the actions of the Germans during World War II, although the construction was completed only in 1948), there is a business zone that was preceded by the PRL-low "GS", created in buildings left behind by the Germans (in connection with the construction of the railway, a construction battalion was stationed here, largely composed of - as it was said here - "Mongols" (they were probably Kalmyks and Crimean Tatars collaborating with the Germans against Stalin). Returning to the cemetery .. The traditional "spontaneous disorder" in the layout of the cemetery's alleys is characteristic, so it has always been considered normal in Poland that no one is put under the ruler after death. It is worth appreciating that the historic graves are listed and marked here, and that they are also cared for and restored. It's not much where it meets. The cemetery (3.3 ha) has a large parking lot (1 ha), there is no such big place anywhere. The local market is held there once a week. The inquisitive can find traces of two previous cemeteries - the one next to the church and the one from the Reformation - by the river, near the roundabout - there are still some lights that are lit there, even though no one has been buried there for over 200 years (and there is Kolejowa).