Nordfriedhof

Cemetery description

In the main municipal Nordfriedhof cemetery in Rudolstadt, the war graves of foreign citizens are located in burial section III. Half of the section contains the graves of Soviet citizens. The remaining part, located next to the stone cross, has 10 memorial tablets with the names of victims coming from different countries, including Poland. Most were forced labourers employed on local farms and in local industrial plants who died during the war as a result of exhaustion, malnutrition, persecution and physical violence.
It is not clear, however, whether the graves are actually these victims’ graves. According to the literature available on the matter, their graves were located in the back part of the cemetery and were not marked in any way. The Soviet memorial site was established in 1948, and the other foreign citizens began to be commemorated only after the year 2000. There is no information available, however, as to the exhumation of the victims’ remains.

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