Today is All Saints’ Day (Wszystkich Swietych) which is an annual national holiday held on 1st November in Poland to commemorate those no longer with the family. It is more commonly known as the Day of the Dead - people remember family members, friends and famous people who passed away on this day.
Thousands of Poles travel to their families to celebrate this day together. They visit with their whole families to cementeries, visiting all the family graves and lay candles, wreths and flowers on them.
The candles that are placed on the graves are made in a way that they burn for many hours. It is believed that candles help the gone souls to find their way in the darkness after death so you should always put at least one candle for each person in the grave. The flowers mostly associated with Day of the Dead in Poland is chrysanthemum which is grown in a way it is unnaturally huge with many, many petals.
Even the most abandoned and destroyed graves are lightened with candles on this day - people when visiting cementery buy more candles than they need just to place some on forgotten and empty graves.
It is also common for most of the people participate in church services which are held throughout the city today.
7 сен 2024