Description of the attraction
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Warsaw is a tomb and a monument in honor of the soldiers who gave their lives for Poland. The grave is located on Jozef Piłsudski Square in Warsaw.
The first grave of unknown soldiers appeared in Paris after the end of the First World War in 1920. In Poland, the idea of creating a memorial site for fallen soldiers first appeared in 1921. In June 1921, a special committee was created in Warsaw - the "Committee for the Memory of the Fallen" under the leadership of Ignacy Baliński. With the support of Cardinal Alexander Kakovsky, Ignatius hired the architect Stefan Schiller to build a commemorative chapel in St. John's Cathedral. However, the chapel was never completed. Residents wanted to see a monumental monument, not a modest chapel, moreover, funding has ended.
In November 1923, Polish President Stanislaw Wojciechowski ordered the creation of a committee for the construction of the Monument to the Unknown Soldier. The state did not have the necessary funds for the construction of the monument, so the press began a massive appeal to citizens to make donations. A year later, it became clear that it would not be possible to collect money in this way.
At the beginning of December 1924, a real miracle happened in Warsaw. A car drove up to the monument to Jozef Poniatowski on Saxony Square, from which a slab measuring 1x2.5 meters and 15 cm thick was unloaded. A cross was depicted on the slab, and under it was the inscription: "To the Unknown Soldier Who Fell for the Fatherland." The customer of the slab remained unknown. After that incident, active work began in the Committee: an architectural competition was announced, which was won by Stanislav Ostrovsky.
In parallel with the construction of the monument, a list of places where fierce battles were fought with the aim of exhuming the remains of unknown soldiers was compiled. In November 1925, the work was completed.
At the end of World War II, the grave was seriously damaged. Reconstruction work began immediately after the end of the war. The opening ceremony took place on May 8, 1946.
