November 1, All Saints Day (Wszystkich Świętych), remains an important holiday in Poland, surpassing Christmas as THE time to get together as a family. All Souls Day (Dzien Zaduszny or Zaduszki), November 2, is the busiest travel day of the year in Poland as family members head home. The evening between the two days is a traditional time to bring all family members together, attend church and remember past family members.
Cemeteries glow in the light of thousands of special, long-burning candles, many in colorful glass jars. The candles light the way for departed souls to come back and find their families. Graves and gravestones are scrubbed and adorned with flowers including many chrysanthemums. Roads are packed with cars as relatives travel long distances to family cemeteries across Poland. Graves without family members are also scrubbed in the spirit of honoring all departed souls.
In Poland All Saints Day is a national holiday. Everyone has the day off except emergency service personnel and transportation employees. Catholics believe the day is a prayerful communion with those who have died and are in heaven. All Soul’s Day is when families honor those who are not yet purified but are honored. Poland remains a deeply faithful country with ninety-five percent of the population Catholic. However, I did see one post that the holiday continued to be celebrated under communism as the Day of the Deceased.
I have not experienced a Polish All Saints Day before, but there is one grave I need to visit in Krakow. One day Henry Zguda showed me a picture of his family’s grave in Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow. He laughed heartily when he showed me a picture of his headstone, already carved with his name, the date of death blank. “See,” he grinned. “My mother is here, and her sisters. I am supposed to be dead, but still I am here.” Henry’s photo has long since disappeared, and in my wish list of places to see when I visited Poland, I missed adding the cemetery to my itinerary. Darn. I’ll just have to go back to Krakow.
Information has been compiled from several web sites, including Catholic.org.
Photo credit: epa05006354 People light candles at the Powazki Cemetery, the oldest cemetery in Warsaw, Poland, on All Saints Day, 01 November 2015. EPA/PAWEL SUPERNAK POLAND OUT
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Very interesting. I imagine after the carnage of WWII and then the Soviet era, this holiday takes on a weight we in the suburban USA have trouble understanding.