The Tomb
The locals today regard Schimek's symbolic tomb as an object of pilgrimage. A nearby tablet reads "Born in 1925, executed in 1944, because he did not want to shoot the Poles. May God take you in his mercy". Many people visit the grave to lay flowers and light candles in his memory. Polish and Austrian flags can also be seen on it.
These visits became controversial in the late 1980s, when the anarcho-pacifist organization Wolnosc i Pokoj (WiP), on November 17, 1985, used the anniversary of Schimek's death to announce their "Declaration of Principles". WiP activists were stopped on their way to the cemetery. Communist militia in Tarnów detained fourteen of them for several hours. On May 4, 1986, a march to Schimek's grave to commemorate his birth resulted in the detention of fifty activists.
In 1993, Telewizja Polska (Polish Television) made a 40-minute documentary movie entitled Casus: Otto Schimek.
Read more about this topic: Otto Schimek
Famous quotes containing the word tomb:
“Let no man write my epitaph; for as no man who knows my motives dare now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them rest in obscurity and peace! Let my memory be left in oblivion, my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character.”
—Robert Emmet (1778–1803)
“Was it the proud full sail of his great verse,
Bound for the prize of all too precious you,
That did my ripe thoughts in my brain inherse,
Making their tomb the womb wherein they grew?
Was it his spirit, by spirits taught to write
Above a mortal pitch, that struck me dead?”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)