Powiatowy Szlak Polski Walczącej

13. Military cemetery of Polish Army soldiers from 1939 in Wieliszew
13. Military cemetery of Polish Army soldiers from 1939 in Wieliszew
Next to the parish cemetery in Wieliszew, there is the largest military cemetery in the Legionowo County where the soldiers fallen during the September Campaign in 1939 are buried. Here lie the ashes of some 300 heroic defenders of the Narew defence line who perished in the Battle of Wizna, from the following military units: 8th and 20th Infantry Division, 32nd Infantry Regiment from Modlin, 78th Regiment from Baranowicze, 79th and 80th regiments from Słonim and from the National Defence Battalion. Out of the number of 300 fallen soldiers, 256 still remain unknown.

First soldiers were buried here in a makeshift collective grave as early as in September 1939. The corpses of fallen soldiers were brought by local farmers from the surrounding fields. The corpses of soldiers from other localities, in particular from Rynia and Beniaminów, and from the Nieporęt commune, were also interred here. Only in late summer of 1941, the bodies were exhumed and reburied according to the Catholic rite, in separate individual graves.

The ashes of the fallen soldiers buried previously in a mass grave in Poniatów were exhumed and laid to rest in the Wieliszew cemetery. At the beginning of the Nazi occupation, the local inhabitants set up a natural birch cross in the cemetery, with a poem by Rajmund Bergel entitled „Infantryman”.

Today, the fallen soldiers of the Polish Army are commemorated by a permanent monument.
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