Park Generała Władysława Andersa, Wrocław

Park Generała Władysława Andersa is an urban green space in Wrocław, created on the site of former parish cemeteries. Its cemetery-like path network, surviving stone and metal fragments, chestnut avenue and central lime walk make its layered history visible within the park landscape.

General Władysław Anders Park is the green space spread between Kamienna, Borowska, Ślężna and Wieczysta streets. Its present name has been in force since the ninth of October 1993. Follow the paths here and you can sense why their pattern feels unusual: the network recalls the layout of a cemetery.

That is because this park occupies former burial grounds. The land was once part of a settlement first noted in 1346, later known as Glinianki and, in part, Huby, where residents made their living growing vegetables. Huby entered Wrocław in 1868.

Beginning in 1862, several city parishes established cemeteries here; they remained marked on city maps as late as 1930. Their fences and gravestones were destroyed in 1945, and the cemetery clearances began in 1967. In 1975, local volunteers created Park of the Thirtieth Anniversary of the Polish People’s Republic on the cleared ground.

It was later divided, with this northern section becoming Anders Park. Fragments of old gravestones and sections of metal fencing can still survive among the greenery. The chestnut avenue and the lime-lined central walk give the former cemetery a much gentler character today.