Breuna Kriegsgräberstätte

Cemetery description

In Breuna, there are two war cemeteries that are located next to each other. In total, they hold the last remains of 635 victims of World War II. The 490 German and 145 foreign victims from Poland and the Soviet Union are buried separately. These were, above all, soldiers that fell in battle, died in military hospitals or during their stay in POW camps.
The cemetery was established in April 1945 by the Americans and, initially, it served as a burial site for Allied soldiers, whose remains were later exhumed and moved to their homelands. Only the graves of the victims from Poland and the USSR, as well as those of German soldiers remained here.
In the 1950s, the cemetery was redeveloped and divided into two separate burial sites. In 1951, both were blessed and entrusted to the care of the Breuna commune. Unfortunately, the majority of the victims remain anonymous. According to the available lists of war graves, only 13 citizens of the USSR and 1 from Poland are known by name. The majority of those buried here are registered as ‘Unknown’. Most probably, most were from the 326 (VIK) Senne POW camp, where Soviet prisoners of war were kept.