THE BIG CHILL

Having endured more than its fair share of suffering and bloodshed, Warsaw has plenty of seasonal scares for Halloween – join us as we bring you a rundown of the city’s most haunted!

Morskie Oko 5

Built in 1927 for Arpad Chowańczak, a ‘furrier to the stars’, the mansion at Morskie Oko 5 was a center point for subversive activities during the war. The area became a combat zone in ’44, and it was in a lull in combat that a girl called Hanka strayed from the building to gather flowers for her lover. Picked off by a sniper’s bullet, her ghostly form is now said to roam the balcony pining for her insurgent sweetheart.

WILCZA 2/4

Flowers wither, floors bleed and unseen women cackle: just a regular day on the first floor of Wilcza 2/4. Haunted by a banker who was murdered in 1915, other occurrences have included sightings of a mournful German officer wandering about.

NIECAŁA / B. PRUSA (KONSTANCIN)

Used in the post-war years by the NKVD, Soviet goons are known to have tortured locals in the basement before murdering them. This former police station is now visited by an executioner trapped between this world and the next, with experts speculating he aches to reveal the burial spots of his victims.

NOWOGRODZKA 14

Get a load of this story: a glamorous theatre actress with a morbid fascination with death and a fondness for opium is shot through the heart by her toy boy lover – a young Russian officer. Haunting Nowogrodzka since her death in 1890, the spectre of Maria Wisnowska is said to favour cheerful morning pranks rather than anything horrific.

The Citadel

Some claim that at dusk crows still gather at the Citadel’s Gate of Execution, ready to feed off the corpses that used to be left out to hang. The air around this Tsarist-era fortress / prison still feels heavy, and aside from ghostly gunshots and anguished screams, nighttime is said to attract practitioners of the black arts to the labyrinthine tunnels that have been gouged underground.

Wi Toja Ska 2

In 1524 it was here that Prince Stanisław passed away –though some say this was due to his hard drinking lifestyle, others suspected foul play. Either way, ever since the property has been witness to several unexplained phenomena – moving furniture, rattling windows and distant conversations spoken in ancient Latin verse.

Jerozolimskie 57

Currently awaiting revitalisation after a brief recent period serving as a ‘creative space’, this building functioned as the Omega Children's Hospital right up until 2003. Following its closure, many visitors re- ported regular ghostly stuff – you know, bloodcurdling screams, objects whistling through the air and phantom children walking through the walls.

Miodowa 15

Best recognized for an elaborate gateway modelled on the Roman Pantheon, Pałac Paca was the 18th century residence of Marcin Radziwiłł, a mentally imbalanced aristocrat with a penchant for cruel and bizarre behaviour – aside from keeping his own children locked from the outside world, he is said to have kidnapped young girls from the streets outside. Today, his trembling figure can be spotted darting around outside.

Nowy Wiat 72

Before the construction of the Pałac Staszica, this address was a church – in 1818 a young priest killed himself at the altar, news that was so shocking that the house of worship was razed to the ground. However, the desperate priest can still be found prowling the corridors of what is now the seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

HIDDEN HISTORY: Otwock Jewish Cemetery

Although primarily known for its ornate wooden villas, the nearby town of Otwock hides many more historical gems –including a forlorn Jewish cemetery…

PHOTOGRAPHS BY KEVIN DEMARIA

Thought to have been founded around 1900 –when Otwock itself was beginning to flourish –the cemetery on Hrabiego street remains one of the region’s lesser-known secrets. Largely destroyed during the German occupation, and then later plundered by thieves searching for valuables, today it stands as an eerie but serene reminder of a world left behind.

Nowadays, around 900 tombstones survive, many of which have been tilted and twisted by the march of time. Often shattered and moss-clad, walking amid these Matzevah is a deeply contemplative experience, even more so when done in the misty half-light of an autumn day. Largely used as a burial ground for those that died in Otwock’s sanatoriums, this point is perhaps worth dwelling on.

Of these, Zofiówka is something of a must-visit. Abandoned for decades, it was founded as a Jewish psychiatric hospital. Later used by the Nazis to imprison Jews (and later still as a centre to ‘Aryanise’ kidnapped Polish children), the derelict network of buildings makes for an intriguing (and slightly disturbing) walk.