Vorwerker Friedhof

Cemetery description

The largest cemetery in Lübeck, Vorwerker Friedhof, is the final resting place for about 3,000 victims of both World Wars. Among them were concentration camps prisoners - Estonians, Latvians, Dutchmen, Germans, Poles, Russians and Ukrainians.
The graves of each of these nationalities can be found in separate burial sites. The Polish graves and the memorial site are located in the northern part of the cemetery, section No. 39. The site has been named the ‘Memorial to Polish Victims of World War II,’ and is a burial site for 250-300 Poles and almost 300 USSR citizens.
To the left of the main entrance there are 32 wooden memorial plaques with the victims’ surnames and initials. Among the plaques is a stone figure of the Sorrowful Christ and a tablet commemorating a group of Polish women who died a tragic death in 1943 (most probably in an air raid). The Poles buried here were mostly men and women forced labourers. During World War II they were deported to Lübeck, where they were forced to work on farms, in artisan workshops or, above all, in heavy industry and ordnance plants in Lübeck and its surroundings. Among the deceased were 13 (11 identified) Polish officers from the XC Oflag (prisoner-of-war camp for officers) who died of exhaustion or disease while still in the camp or right after the war. A large group of Polish citizens buried in the cemetery were displaced persons, i.e. persons who, after the war, stayed in refugee camps waiting for an opportunity to return to their home country or to emigrate to the West.
The graves of more than 180 Polish children (mostly infants) can also be found on the grounds of the Lübeck cemetery. These children were born during or just after the war.
The cemetery lists of Poles buried in the Vorwerker Friedhof cemetery in Lübeck comprise more than 600 names. However, almost half of their graves were denied the status of war graves and therefore refused protection. As a result, they have not survived until today.
Section No. 39 is both a memorial and burial site for concentration camp prisoners, most of whom died in the final weeks of the war during the evacuation marches, the so-called ‘death marches’. They were buried in 183 single graves. The identity or the country of origin of the vast majority of the victims remains unknown. Only between ten and twenty diagonally cut granite posts, which symbolise gravestones, bear the victims’ names.
The lists of the war graves in this cemetery also include the names of 12 Polish men and women - concentration camp prisoners who died within several weeks post-war.

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