Gertraudenfriedhof

Cemetery description

The Getraudenfriedhof cemetery in Halle contains several war graves burial sections and memorials commemorating victims of Nazism. Most of the Polish citizens are buried in the burial section for foreign victims No. 19. A monument was erected here - a red sandstone wall with an inscription that reads: ‘In memory of the foreign victims of Fascist terror, murdered in Halle.’
On both sides of this oblong burial section there are 18 plaques with the names of the victims’ countries of origin. However, they fail to provide the victims’ names or information about their fate.
Some Polish citizens are buried in burial section No. 25, which holds the graves of air raid victims. The place is marked by stone plaques with more than a dozen Polish names inscribed upon them. Nearby, on the crossroads of the cemetery paths, stands a stone obelisk with an appeal inscribed upon it that says: ‘The 689 victims of air bombardments buried in this cemetery call for peace.’
In the burial section of the Institute of Anatomy is Krystyna Wituska’s grave, a 24-year-old Polish woman sentenced to death for conspiratorial activity in the Home Army, and guillotined in the Halle prison in 1944. Her body was handed over to the Institute of Anatomy for study, and then buried anonymously, as was in the case of 60 other victims - in the Getraudenfriedhof cemetery.
In the south-western part of the cemetery, a burial site can be found that contains the graves of 679 victims murdered by the National-Socialist state - 463 victims were executed in the Zuchthaus ‘Roter Ochse’ prison while 150 persons fell victim to the Nazi Euthanasia Program. In the prison, more than 550 persons were put to death, many of whom were Polish citizens - men and women members of the resistance movement, prisoners of war, and forced labourers. The latest research has made it possible to determine the personal data of 283 persons of Polish nationality buried in this cemetery.

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