Kaunas Old Cemetery in Kaunas, Kaunas

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Get directions Vytauto prospektas 46
Kaunas, Kaunas City Municipality, Kaunas LT-44329 Lithuania

Coordinates: 54.89200, 23.92700
Cemetery ID:

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About these numbers These percentages indicate the number of Find a Grave memorials that have a grave photo or GPS coordinates. We don't know the total number of burials in a cemetery, so we cannot calculate a percentage of those with memorials, photos or GPS coordinates.

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Kaunas Old Cemetery was the principal burial place of Kaunas from 1847 to its disestablishment in 1959. The burial areas occupied 6 hectares (15 acres) of the city block bounded by Vytauto on the west (front), Totoriu on the north, Traku on the east, and Baznycios on the south. Management of the block was distributed among the 4 non-Jewish religious communities of Kaunas – Lutherans (northwest), Muslims (northeast), Catholics (center) and Orthodox (south). Each community in turn used its portion of the block for churches, schools and cemeteries.

The Soviet occupation which began in 1944 was the event that upset the delicate balance among the closely intermingled faiths and nationalities. The cemetery became a focal point for passive resistance to the Communist authorities when families would decorate graves with increasingly patriotic themes, particularly on All Souls Day traditionally set aside for dressing graves. The Communists responded by closing the cemetery in 1958 and announcing plans to turn it into a public recreational park. They gave survivors several months to relocate remains of loved ones to other cemeteries. Some remains were moved, most were left in place. In 1959, the Communists bulldozed all monuments of any kind and refashioned it as a park called Peace Park. Ever since, there have been no observable monuments, only untold hundreds of people buried in nameless graves. In 1991, after restoration of Lithuanian independence, the city of Kaunas officially designated the park as Kaunas Old Cemetery in their memory.