Symbolic Cemetery at Popradské Pleso

The Symbolic Cemetery (1525 m) is an important Tatra memorial site near the tarn Popradské pleso under the western walls of Ostrva. The memorial cemetery is intended primarily to commemorate those who died in the High Tatras or the exceptional people from the Tatras, who lost their lives in the world’s mountains.

You’ll find here more than 160 memorial plaques and 50 hand-carved, colored wooden crosses. The founder of the cemetery was the academic painter Otakar Štáfl (1884 – 1945), who, together with his wife and several friends, started building it in 1936. It was handed over to the public in 1940 with the motto „In memory of the dead, warning for the alive“. Today, the symbolic cemetery is taken care of by the State Forests of the Tatra National Park. For its further expansion, strict criteria now apply for aesthetic and spatial reasons, and it is closed to visitors every year from November 1st to June 15th.