Alto de São João Cemetery
Alto de São João Cemetery (Portuguese: "Cemitério do Alto de São João") is the largest cemetery in Lisbon, Portugal, located in the "freguesia" (civil parish) of Penha de França, in eastern Lisbon (formerly, within the parish of São João). Similar to Prazeres Cemetery, it is the resting place for many prominent figures, from literature to the arts, from science to politics, from working class to nobility, side by side with anonymous citizens who are buried and cremated there. The cemetery is public and receives residents from several "freguesias" in the capital. The cemetery is composed  of mausoleums, temporary and perpetual graves, crypts, ossuaries and columbaria. Also noteworthy are the Crypt of Combatants of the Great War and the Memorial of the Tarrafal concentration camp victims. History. Alto de São João Cemetery was founded in 1833 after the outbreak of cholera in the city, along with Prazeres Cemetery. It was originally named "Cemitério Oriental de Lisboa" (Eastern Cemetery of Lisbon). The country's first crematorium was built here in 1925, but would eventually cease to operate for political and religious reasons in 1936. It only resumed operation in 1985 after pressure from the city's Hindu  community. There have already been cremated several public figures such as José Saramago, Nobel Literature laureate and Álvaro Cunhal, anti-fascist politician and minister in the first four provisional governments after the Carnation Revolution. Famed novelist and diplomat Eça de Queiroz was buried at Alto de São João Cemetery prior to his reinterment in his family mausoleum in Baião Municipality.