Chopin feared being buried alive, asked for his heart to be removed

Frédéric Chopin, dying in October 1849, asked that his heart be removed after death. He feared taphophobia — the fear of being buried alive, common in the 19th century. The composer's heart was brought to Warsaw and rests in the Church of the Holy Cross to this day. Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola in 1810 and struggled with tuberculosis from his youth.