Cmentarz wojenny

Biskupice War Cemetery - a World War I cemetery located in Biskupice, near Pilica. Soldiers of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian armies were buried there.

In November and December 1914, the area was the scene of heavy fighting between Austrians and Russians; in 1918, soldiers from both sides who had been buried in different places were moved to a newly created war cemetery on land purchased from Kazimierz Arkuszewski by the Austrian authorities. According to the assumptions of those times, the fallen from hostile armies could be buried in the same place, symbolically equaling each other in the face of death. There were 5 mass graves and 53 individual ones, on which wooden crosses were placed. The plan of the cemetery, made by the Kriegsgraber - Abteilung des K.u.K Kreiskomandes Olkusz showed the location of the graves, their dimensions, wall, moat and trees. The cemetery was designed by Knell, an engineer from Lublin.

The Austrian records of those buried in Biskupice did not survive; therefore, information about them is very scarce. It is known that soldiers originally buried in Smoleñ, S³awniów, Strzegowa, Z³o¿eniec, and probably those buried in Pilica at the town marketplace were transferred here. In the mid 1930s, it was reported that 779 Austrians and 219 Russians were buried there, a total of 998 people. Later, 2 more mass graves were added, created as a result of subsequent komasation actions. At that time there were 35 more plaques with personal data of soldiers in the cemetery, now there is only one identified tombstone - Austrian second lieutenant Ernest Jentkiewicz.

In the 1930s the cemetery, weedy and neglected, was cleaned up. It was cleaned up again in 1995, when a modern fence was erected. The last burial on the cemetery took place in autumn 2010. - An unidentified Austrian soldier, exhumed in September from the vicinity of Smoleń, was buried here.