The war cemetery in Wildflecken is the final resting place for 544 Polish citizens, including 428 children, who died after the war in a nearby Displaced Persons Camp. The deceased are buried in single graves. Between May 1945 and 1951, 20,000 Poles stayed in the Wildflecken Displaced Persons Camp. They lived in inhumane living conditions in densely crowded temporary lodgings. Initially, the camp was administered by the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), and later by the IRO (International Refugee Organization). The original plan was for the camp to serve as a stopover on the refugees’ way to a new life either in their homeland or in the countries they wanted to emigrate to. However, not all of them lived to fulfil their plans, and a great number of children born after the war died as a result of meningitis.
Between 1970 and 1971, the neglected cemetery was rebuilt and rearranged by the German war graves commission (Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V). The single graves were levelled and covered by a lawn, and the names of 119 women and men were inscribed upon several metal plaques as well as on the plinth of the centrally placed cross. A separate metal memorial plaque bears an inscription in Polish and German commemorating the dead children: ‘In memory of 428 Polish children who lie here and whose just-begun lives came to an end as a result of war.’
At the entrance to the cemetery there is a cemetery chapel (a 4m diameter rotunda, 4 m high) the interior of which is decorated with a fresco designed and created by Professor Mieczysław Wejman, head of the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Its central motif is the Angel of Peace who is leading the souls of dead children through the wall and the barbed wire to a better life with God the Father. The motto goes as follows: ‘Dream is the brother of Death.’
The Stations of the Cross of Nations leading to the cemetery consists of ten stations represented by ten stone tablets commemorating the victims of both World Wars.
