Nordfriedhof

Cemetery description

The Northern Cemetery (Nordfriedhof) in Hildesheim is the final resting place for more than 700 foreign victims of World War II. The majority were forced labourers that died as a result of disease, exhaustion, malnutrition or horrendous living and working conditions. Most graves of the Polish citizens can be found in burial Sections III a and VI a.
The largest burial Section No. III a, holds the graves of more than 500 foreign victims. The deceased are buried in single graves arranged in 14 rows - each with 24 graves. The majority were citizens of the USSR and Poland (more than 100 persons), including many children who were born in the forced labour camp. This burial section also holds a collective grave marked by a stone plaque that bears an inscription ‘208 unknown.’ It is a memorial to and, at the same time, the final resting place for victims of mass executions carried out in the last days of the war. The executions took place in the city’s market square and in the so-called ‘temporary prison’ located in the northern cemetery. As a result, 191 men and 17 women, most of whom were forced labourers and prisoners of war, were murdered. Burial Section VI a contains more than 20 graves of Poles that died between 1941 and 1942. The headstones are arranged vertically or horizontally.
The state of preservation of the headstones and the memorials in 2018 was mediocre. Therefore, in 2022, the city of Hildesheim began planning to renovate and better maintain the war graves.

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