Deblinghausen Kriegsgräberstätte

Cemetery description

In this cemetery, more than 2,000 unidentified foreign victims of World War I and World War II have found their final resting place. Most died between 1939 and 1945. These were civilian forced labourers from Middle and Eastern Europe, including Soviet prisoners of war mostly. They worked in the nearby Pulverfabrik Libenau armaments plant. The very hard working conditions, hunger, poor living conditions, lack of medical care, brutal treatment and numerous accidents led to a high death toll there. The victims were buried both in single and collective graves. The cemetery was arranged in the 1950s with the help of the German War Graves Commission (Volksbund) and the Deblinghausen commune. In the 1960s, the graves of almost 400 foreign war victims (including numerous Poles) were moved to this site from the local cemeteries.
Initially, this was a burial site for prisoners of the Libenau work education camp that was operational from November 1941 until April 1943. As of the summer of 1940, it was a police camp administered by the Gestapo in Hanover. In total, approximately 6,000 inmates who were employed in the above-mentioned armaments plant went through this camp. There were around 250 cases of death, mostly among the prisoners from the USSR and Poland.
The recent research has confirmed that 199 identified Polish citizens are buried in this cemetery.

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