Thanks to the organizing efforts of the Wałcz Land Museum, a historical walk at the Wałcz Military Cemetery took place on February 23. Almost forty participants braved winter conditions for an hour and a half to learn more about the history of this place and the people buried there.
In post-displacement regions, cemeteries hold particular significance. The Military Cemetery in Wałcz Bukowina is one of the largest in the region, housing the graves of Polish and Soviet soldiers who fought against the German army here. The walk through the cemetery was also part of the 80th-anniversary commemorations of the breaking through the Pomeranian Wall, a German line of fortifications, in February 1945.
Among the guides was our PI, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, who discussed the history of the cemetery and the moral and ethical complexities surrounding the exhumation of fallen soldiers. Regional historian Piotr Wojtanek highlighted an often-overlooked aspect regarding the religious affiliations of the soldiers buried at the cemetery: it is also the final resting place for soldiers of the Jewish faith. Daniel Iwiński from the Wałcz reenactment group told a couple of stories focused on the material remains of perished soldiers. Marlena Jakubczyk-Kurkiewicz, the director of the Museum, shared stories of individual soldiers, both men and women from various places, who fell in the region.
During the walk, amidst a sea of thousands of names, it was possible to highlight a few individual stories and provide a narrative for the place, which can now serve not only as a site for official commemoration but also hold a deeper, more human meaning for the inhabitants of Wałcz and its vicinity.
