Friedhof Aldenburg

Cemetery description

The municipal cemetery in Wilhelmshaven, a district of the city of Aldenburg, is the final resting place for approximately 730 war graves located in two burial sections: one devoted to victims of bombardments and the other containing a mass grave of prisoners of the Benter Lager sub-camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, as well as forced labourers and prisoners of war.
The graves of Polish citizens can be found in the oblong burial Section No. 18a located in the western part of the cemetery, along Kurt Schumacher Street. The site contains the graves of more than 270 prisoners of the Benter Lager sub-camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp, including 20 Poles whose first and last names are inscribed upon a stone slab (located not far from the main memorial) that bears an inscription in Polish: ‘In memory of the Poles who died a tragic death in concentration camps - their Fellow Countrymen.’ The burial section also holds the graves of more than 30 civilian male and female forced labourers from Poland who were killed or died in Wilhelmshaven between 1940 and 1945.
The central part of this burial site is marked by a red granite monument bearing the following inscription: ‘In memory of the German and foreign victims of National Socialism interred here. They all died for the freedom of their peoples.’ In front of the monument, there is a row of collective gravestones bearing the victims’ names - some of them are hardly legible. In the left part of this section, there is a memorial devoted to prisoners of the concentration camp, marked with three crosses and a memorial slab with the inscription that reads: ‘Here lie victims of the Banter Lager sub-camp of the Neuengamme concentration camp. Your death is a perpetual warning to us.’
The burial site is well maintained and its state is good (June 2019).

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