Stary Cmentarz Ewangelicki, Bielsko-Biała

Old Evangelical Cemetery in Bielsko-Biała - a closed Evangelical cemetery located in Bielsko-Biała, at Andrzej Frycza-Modrzewskiego Street on the so-called Bielsko Zion.

It was established in February 1833 on a property donated by a soap maker Gottlieb Klimke. The decision to build it was speeded up by the cholera epidemic which hit Bielsko in 1831. Earlier both Evangelicals and Catholics were buried in a common cemetery by the Holy Trinity Church. In the 1860s it was significantly enlarged in the eastern direction. In 1911 New Evangelical Cemetery on Listopadowa St. was opened, however burials on the old cemetery were made until World War II. Probably later also victims of the Security Office were illegally buried here. After 1945, the cemetery was regularly destroyed and the communist authorities even demanded that German-language gravestones be removed. Descendants of the people buried in the cemetery had to devastate the tombstones in order to save them, for example, by painting them over with paint, removing old inscriptions, or turning the tombstones over with the inscriptions facing the ground. Few of them were restored by the town after 1989.

The cemetery consists of seven sectors. A neo-Gothic gate with three arcades, built in 1863, leads to the cemetery. The oldest preserved tombstone dates back to 1857. The most representative part of the necropolis is the Merit Avenue, leading from the south to the north, where the richest and most distinguished residents of the city found their resting place.

In the Old Evangelical Cemetery in Bielsko-Biała rest, among others, the mayors of the city, e.g. Karl Ferdinand Sennewaldt, Moritz Scholz or Heinrich Hofmann, distinguished pastors, e.g. Josef František Schimko, Karl Samuel Schneider, industrialists, e.g. Gustav Förster and Hermann Schneider, social activists, e.g. Theodor Sixt, scholars, e.g. Philipp Johann Ferdinand Schur

The necropolis, closed for over 70 years, is an enclave of wild nature in the center of the city. Monumental trees surrounded by ivy and other creepers grow here. Tombstones, walls and cemetery alleys are overgrown with numerous species of plants. It is also a haven for birds and small mammals.