Sunday, 2 November 2025

All Souls' Day Pilgrimage

A good pilgrimage for the day. I set out in daylight, arriving at the cemetery in Rososz around sunset, and walk back in darkness. Five kilometres there, five kilometres home. And a chance to look at a cemetery at the end of the two-day commemorations of Zaduszki, All Souls' Day or in Latin, Commemoratio Omnium Fidelium Defunctorum. Those Poles who had not visited the graves yesterday came today, which means that maximum candlelight is to be seen in the evening of 2 November. 

Doing my shopping in Lidl on Friday, the aisles were blocked with pallets of votive candles, advertised as having a burn time of 72 hours. Buy on Friday, light on Saturday, it will still be burning brightly on Sunday. And on Sunday evening, cars were still turning up bringing visitors to the cemetery.

Rososz is a small community; the cemetery belongs to the parish church, which was built in 1985, the earliest graves in this cemetery dates back to the late 1980s. As such, this is an unusual place to visit; it's neither large, nor historic, nor famous. But a visit it merits, the destination of a reasonably long walk. As with yesterday's visit, I look at each grave, noting the names – so many familiar surnames, reminding me of people I grew up with in Polish London. And those surnames that raise a wry smile, simply because they don't exist in an English context (Jeż = Hedgehog or Myszka = Mouse). And the age at death. Like in Chynów, so many died all too early – especially the men. All too often I see: "Zm. śm. trag." the date and the age; "zmarł śmiercią tragiczną" – he died a tragic death.




I came, I experienced, I felt.

This time last year:
To Warka, again

This time two years ago:
Early-November reflections
[More photographs from Rososz cemetery]

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