| Location
Information: |
Haidar Pasha is a
suburb of Istanbul between Scutari (Uskudar) and Kadikoy on the Asiatic
side of the Bosphorous. By ferry from the Golden Horn, Istanbul: Take
the ferry from Karakoy, near the Galata Bridge, to Haidar Pasha pier
head and railway station. Go around to the right (south) side of the
main station building and follow the road east approximately 400
metres.
Close to the mosque with twin minarets
there are steps up to the Kadikoy Rimtimi Cad Road. Turn left
(northwards) along this road (passing over the railway lines) and
continue for approximately 700 metres and then at the traffic lights
turn left down towards the entrance to the cemetery - just past the
military hospital main gate.
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| Historical
Information: |
HAIDAR
PASHA CEMETERY was first established for Crimean war burials and was
used during the First World War by the Turks for the burial of Commonwealth
prisoners of war. After the
Armistice, when Istanbul was occupied, further burials were made mainly
from No 82 General Hospital and graves were brought in from other civil
cemeteries in the area.
During the Second World War, Turkey
retained her neutrality and those Commonwealth servicemen buried there
were mainly men taken prisoner during operations in the Aegean, who died
while attempting to escape from camps where they awaited transport to
Germany and Italy, and whose bodies were washed up on the Turkish coast.
The war graves plot contains 405 Commonwealth burials of the First World
War, 60 of them unidentified.
Second World War burials number 39, 14
of them unidentified. Also within the cemetery, which the Commission
maintains as a whole, are about 6,000 Crimean graves, mostly unmarked,
and numerous non war military and civilian graves and memorials. Within
the war graves plot stands the HAIDAR PASHA CREMATION MEMORIAL, which
commemorates 122 soldiers of the Indian Army who died in 1919 and 1920
who were originally commemorated at Mashiak and Osmanieh Cemeteries. In
1961 when these cemeteries could no longer be maintained, the ashes of
the Hindus, whose remains were cremated in accordance with their faith,
were scattered near this memorial, while the remains of their comrades
of the Muslim faith were brought here and re-interred.
The war graves plot also contains the
HAIDAR PASHA MEMORIAL, which was erected to commemorate more than 30
Commonwealth servicemen of the First World War who died fighting in
South Russia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, and in post Armistice operations
in Russia and Transcaucasia, whose graves are not known. An Addenda
panel was later added to commemorate over 170 Commonwealth casualties
who are buried in cemeteries in South Russia and Transcaucasia whose
graves can no longer be maintained.
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