All Saints' Day

On November 1st I celebrated my first real Polish holiday - Wszystkich Świętych, or All Saints' Day. It was an incredible experience, beautiful, moving and totally different from anything celebrated in the U.S.

All Saints' Day is a Catholic holy day that comemorates all saints and martyrs. While celebrated by Catholics around the world, this holiday has special meaning for Poles. For Poles, All Saints' Day is also a time to remember family members, friends and others who have died. While most of Poland shuts down, All Saints' Day being a national holiday, the graveyards hum with energy. Poles head to the resting places of their loved ones to light candles, decorate the graves with flowers and to pray.



(Memorial to 9/11 - several people from Kielce died in the attacks on the World Trade Centers)

I had been told about All Saints' Day since my arrival in Poland and for a couple of weeks in advance I could tell that something important was going to happen. Stalls selling candle laterns and flowers became a common sight on streetcorners and at school classmates kept asking me what cemetaries I would be visiting. There was a feeling of anticipation in the air.



On the morning of November 1st my host family and I gathered the candle laterns and walked to the graveyards. We are lucky to live about half-mile from the graveyards, many Polish families travel hours to their family cemetaries. Immediately upon leaving the house I could tell where everyone was heading. As we followed the crowds down the streets I almost felt like I was at the State Fair, only everyone was dressed-up, somber and carrying flowers and candles.

At each cemetary I visited (I went to four) the process was the same. We found the family member's grave, lit our candles and said a prayer. It was a quiet rememberence, moving in it's simplicity. Walking through the cemetaries I was amazed by the incredible amount of flowers and candles. Every grave is covered, even those over a hundred years old! There were people everywhere, decorating their loved ones' graves. Small children, old Babcias and Dziadeks, families moving from grave to grave. For many, All Saints' Day means bumping into relatives who one perhaps hasn't seen since last November 1st.



Though beautiful during the day, the graveyards at night are absolutely incredible. Thousands of candles flicker, bathing the graves in warmth and light. Often graveyards in the U.S. are considered scary, haunted, but walking through these cemetaries at night I felt at complete peace. These were not the Halloween terror scenes, but a places of rememberence and love.




I am extremely grateful to have been able to celebrate All Saints' Day in Poland. I've heard from several people that though several other countries celebrate All Souls' Day (for example, Mexico's Day of the Dead), no where celebrates the day as beautifully as Poland. And though those reports may have been a bit biased, I agree. It's amazing that an entire country takes a day to remember their loved ones. November 1st was a day full of color, from the flowers to the candle laterns, full of family and full of rememberence. For me, it was an incredible chance to observe an extremely special tradition in Poland and a day that I will always remember.