Pomnik Wspólnej Pamięci, Wrocław

Joint Memorial - a monument dedicated to the memory of Wrocław residents whose graves were liquidated in the postwar years.

The idea of the lapidary commemorating the dead Wrocław citizens buried before 1945 in the cemeteries that had been liquidated was born in the 1990s, after more than two hundred German tombstones were found in Mirków in 1989. These tombstones came from cemeteries that had been destroyed in Wroclaw and were used by the owner of a stone workshop to make new tombstones or other stone details. All saved tombstones were later bought by the city. Initially, it was planned to use all the elements to create a new cemetery on the site of the closed and transformed into a park Grabiszynski Cemetery III. Finally in 2005 the design by Tomasz Tomaszewski, Alojzy Gryta and Czes³aw Wesolowski was chosen.

The Joint Memorial is located exactly on the spot where the Wroclaw crematorium used to be. A long alley with a hedge leads to it from Grabiszynska Street, starting with a granite gate with the Latin name of the monument, Monumentum Memoriae Communis. The monument is made of granite and has the shape of a wall consisting of 32 fragments with uneven ends. Several preserved German tombstones are attached to the whole. Four parts of the monument correspond with different categories of cemeteries in old Wrocław: Catholic, Evangelical, communal and Jewish. In the middle there is a horizontal slab with a list of all cemeteries in Wroclaw liquidated after 1945. The whole is 60 m long.

The opening ceremony was preceded by an ecumenical service attended by representatives of four religious communities in Wroclaw.

The memorial does not mention that these cemeteries were deliberately destroyed and liquidated and does not mention the nationality of those buried.