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Except for his heart?!

Indeed.

Chopin gave instructions that after death, his heart was to be removed from his body. The heart was returned to Poland, where it is now entombed in the Church of the Holy Name in Warsaw.

The composer Andre Gretry (1741-1813) presents an identical case: his grave is in Pere Lachaise, but his heart was returned to his home city of Liege in present-day Belgium.

With the Polish pianist, composer and statesman Ignacy Paderewski, things are reversed: it was the body that traveled back to the native land, while the heart stayed in the adopted country. Paderewski died in the U. S. in 1941, and President Roosevelt authorized a temporary resting place in Arlington National Cemetery, saying, "He may lie there until Poland is free."

After the fall of Communism, Paderewski was returned to Krakow. But in accordance with his wish that part of him should always stay in America, his heart is enshrined in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, a traditionally Polish-American community.

 

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