Gedenkstätte Roter Garten

Cemetery description

On the Roter Garten Square in Zerbst (at the intersection of Schloßfreiheit Street, Fritz-Brandt Street and Breite Street) is the ‘Roter Garten’ (the ‘Red Garden’) Memorial Site commemorating the victims of World War II. The central part of the square is marked by a monument by Gustaw Weidanz, entitled ‘Two naked men’, erected in 1950. The crypt underneath contains the ashes of 74 Polish prisoners of the Straguth camp.
At the entrance to the square there is a stone information board, surrounded by rose bushes, providing information about the war victims buried here.
The victims were prisoners of the camp administered by the Gestapo in Straguth, who died as a result of inhumane living conditions and brutal treatment, or in Allied air bombardments. Their remains were exhumed and cremated in 1949 in the Dessau crematorium and the urns were placed under the monument. However, to this day, only few fragments of the walls of the former camp have survived.

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