Friedhof St. Peter

Cemetery description

The St Peter’s Church Cemetery (Friedhof St. Peter) contains two memorial and burial sites for victims of forced labour during World War II. The information about the men, women and children who died in Bietigheim can be seen on a board right next to the cemetery gate. Not far from the entrance, seven metal plaques displaying the victims’ names can be found as well as information that this is a memorial site devoted to 198 victims of the Nazi regime who died between 1939 and 1945. This memorial was created in 1998, and the metal plaques were placed over the former sandstone slabs on which the names had already faded away.
The central part of the cemetery holds 44 war graves marked by a stone cross bearing an inscription in Polish: ‘Eternal rest grant unto them, oh Lord’ and the information that this is the final resting place for the Poles, Latvians, Greeks and Russians, deported between 1939 and 944 to concentration camps and for forced labour, who died in Bietigheim.
After the German attack on the USSR, a transit camp for the south-eastern area of Germany was established in Bietigheim. Many of those unfit for work that were brought to the camp were accommodated in the barracks for the sick, which in fact were dying rooms. As a result, more than 190 victims were buried in the St Peter’s cemetery. In total, the cemetery holds the graves of 51 identified Polish citizens, 31 of whom were so-called displaced persons who died after the end of World War II.

Address details