General Bem – The Hero of Two Nations
One of the houses on the present General Joseph Bem Square is considered the birthplace of Joseph Bem. On 15th December 1910, on the sixtieth anniversary of General’s death, mayor Tadeusz Tertil proposed, and the Town Council passed a resolution, “to place a plaque in the wall of Bem’s birth house” to commemorate this event.
The trail leads to Tarnów Town Hall which houses an exhibition on General Bem (closed for renovation works until December 2010). It includes: remembrances of Bem’s life and army activities in Poland during the November Uprising; his immigration in France, life in Hungary during the “Springtime of Nations” in 1848 where he commanded the Transylvanian Army and his immigration in Turkey, where Bem died in Aleppo (present Syria) on December 10th 1850.
The ashes of General Joseph Bem were brought back to Poland, to his hometown Tarnów in 1929 and rested in an imposing mausoleum located in Strzelecki Park. Worth seeing is also the monument of General Bem on Walowa street - the main point of interest of Hungarian tourists.
One of the stops on the trail is located by Seklers' Gate at Petofi Square. It is a gift of a Hungarian nation for Tarnów citizens and is the second such a gate in Poland, after the Stary Sacz one.
It is worth mentioning that in the collection of Tarnów Regional Museum there are pieces of Panorama Siedmiogrodzka, or Transylvanian Panorama, the painting that was ordered by Hungarians to honor General Bem. It was painted under the direction of Jan Styka, Polish artist. The original canvas was 120 meters long and 15 meters high. The museum managed to collect fourteen pieces including the largest one (3.85m x 3.28m) illustrating the rear of the Hungarian Army commanded by General Bem at the battle of Sybin on 11th March 1849.
