Abstract

The Municipal Council and Administration in Gdańsk (Danzig), created by the Polish government in April 1945, had a pressing task of restoring adequate sanitary conditions in the city. This necessitated introducing control over burials and cemeteries. To do that on 16 July 1945 the Municipal Administration established the Central Office of Municipal Cemeteries, which since 1 August was subordinated to the Social Welfare Section. The care of greenery and enclosed cemeteries was entrusted to the City Planting Section, which was a department of the Municipal Administration since 1 June 1945. At the beginning of the 1950s the Planting Section was dissolved and replaced with the City Greenery Office, which swallowed up the Office of Municipal Cemeteries. The Greenery Office was supposed to conserve and manage parks and the green belt, beaches and bathing places, city woodlands, municipal and military cemeteries, as well as produce seedlings for all those, and manage the zoo. The article presents problems of cemetery management: the estimated and real costs incurred by the city, the structure of the Office and daily management issues that had to be settled by cemetery managers and undertakers.