History

The municipal cemetery at Oracka Street in Bochnia was opened on 5 November 1787. It was situated in the area of the Solomon Mountain, referenced in historical sources in 1651. The earliest gravestones occurred neart the cross where currently the chapel-grave of priests is located. The cemetery area was extended a couple of times. Currently, it occupies an area of approx. 6 ha, housing around 5500 graves. In 1995, it was closed for new graves, and since then only the existing ones may serve as burial places.

Description

There are two chapels-tombs at the cemetery. The Chapel of St Stanislaus the Bishop is located near the main path. It was founded in the first half of the 19th century by the Sarna family. Over time, it became a general graveyard chapel. It is a classical building, made of brick, erected on a rectangular floor plan, covered with gable roof with a steeple turret. On both sides of the entrance there are niches in which there are painted depictions of St Peter and St Paul. In the left niche, there is a grave of Jan Kintzel (died 1820), and in the other one - cast iron plaque on the burial place of solider Euzebisz Puchner (died 1843). Chapel-grave of priests is located in the southern part of the cemetery. It is a neo-Romanesque/neo-Gothic building from the end of the 19th century, made of brick, not plastered, with buttressed façades and stone architectural detail. On the northern façade, there are epitaph plaques of priests buried in the chapel. By the main path, near the main entrance, there is a funeral house with a chapel, built at the turn of 1960s and 1970s, thoroughly converted in 1996. The most interesting and most numerous grave stones are works created from the end of the 19th century by the Artistic Sculpture Atelier of Wojciech Samek in Bochnia, as well as his students who opened their own stonemason workshops - Antoni Hajdecki and Franciszek Adamek, and their successors. In the cemetery, there are also works coming from Cracow Workshops - of Stanisław Bodnicki, Trembecki brothers, Jan Tombiński, Fabian Hochstim. The gravestones of the workers of the salt mine, decorated with mining motifs, are unique. There are collective graves located in the cemetery, inter alia

1.The Grace of Victims of Galician Slaughter of 1846 - a collective earth grave in the form of a polygon reinforced with contrete. In its centre, there is a metal cross reminiscent of birch wood. In this place, nobility members and court officials were buried, murdered or died later in Bochnia from injuries. It contains the remains of, among others, members of the Kępiński family from Nieznanowice, Karol Schlosser - an insurgent from 1831, and a judge from Łapanów, Ignacy Dydyński.

2.Monument - gravestone of the victims of mine fire - designed by Teodor Talowski, and made by the Artistic Sculpture Atelier of Wojciech Samek in Bochnia. It has the form of a several-meter granite obelisk, is neo-Gothic in style and topped with a crucifix. It is surrounded by four granite posts connected with a metal, cast chain. On the panels of the plinth, a poetic epitaph inscription is carved, as well as names of the victims and information about the circumstances of the fire which outbroke in the Beust chamber at the Stampfer-Gussman-Fryze level in the Sutoris shaf field in the salt mine of Bochnia. From 30.12.1875 to 3.1.1876, the following people died: senior treasury councillor Edward Windakiewicz, mining councillor Andrzej Furdzik and 10 miners (kw. III).

3.Military graves from the World War I - created in 1916 according to a design by Karl Schölich. Earthworks and construction works were carried out by Russian prisoners under the direction of sub-lieutenant Mieczysław von Wyszyński. In the grave, 417 people in total are buried - 399 Austrians, 6 Germans, and 12 Russians. The grave is rectangural in shape and has area of 1300 sq.m. It is circumscribed with walls made of ashlar stones, topped with a semi-circular contrete roof. In the middle, there is a cross 14 m high, made of ashlar stones. In the niche of the plinth on which the cross stands, there is a relief depicting kneeling Angel of Death with a sword in his hand. On both sides of the cross, there is a concrete balustrade with symmetrically located entrances. A row of stone officer graves runs parallely to the balustrade. In the southern part of the grave plot, there are three single graves of soldiers of September 1939, died in Bochnia from injuries.

4.Former Evangelical grave - situated near the chapel of the Sarna family (VII a). Single, poorly legible gravestones have survived here. It was a place of burial of German settlers who inflew to Bochnia in 1780s. Once the grave was shaped as an elongated rectangle.

The monument is available during the opening hours of the cemetery.

compiled by Olga Dyba, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Krakow, 21-04-2015.

Bibliography

• Flasza J., Kęsek J., Cmentarze bocheńskie. Przewodnik historyczny. Bochnia 1992.
• Flasza J., Bochnia. Przewodnik po mieście. Bochnia 1998.