Kriegsgräberstätte Neumarkt/Oberpfalz

Cemetery description

The cemetery in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz is one of the largest burial sites in Bavaria for victims of World War I and World War II.
During World War II, not far from here, there was a large transit camp for forced labourers deported from Middle and Eastern Europe. Between August 1942 and April 1945, 1,192 prisoners were buried after they died as a result of various epidemics and of exhaustion caused by hard labour and tragic living conditions. After the war, the transit camp was transformed into a displaced persons’ camp. Active until 1949, 216 persons died and found their final resting place in the camp cemetery.
In the 1950s, it was decided to establish a war cemetery here. In the years 1950s and 1960s, the graves of all the foreign victims of World War I and World War II were moved here from temporary burials in Neustadt. These included the foreign graves from more than 300 cemeteries and makeshift burial sites in this part of Bavaria. Most of those buried here are Soviet soldiers and prisoners of war (more than 3,000), as well as forced labourers and victims of bombardments, including 447 women and 287 children. The cemetery is the final resting place mainly for citizens of the USSR, Poland, Yugoslavia and Romania. The names of 5,049 victims are identified while those of 1,052 remain anonymous.
The entrance to the cemetery is marked by two information boards that provide information about where the victims from the given countries are buried and from which parts of Bavaria they were exhumed. The first and last names of the identified victims can be found on metal plaques that mark each particular grave site. The victims are commemorated by means of a monument - three tall stelae, one of which bears a memorial text that reads: ‘Let the suffering and sacrifice of the dead burn with fire as a warning in our hearts.’
The Polish burial section is located in the central part of the cemetery and is marked as Block V. It is the final resting place for 269 victims whose names are inscribed upon a metal plaque.

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