In the municipal cemetery in Altenburg there is a separate burial section called the ‘Soviet-Polish Honorary Cemetery.’ The site contains the graves of concentration camp prisoners, soldiers and forced labourers as well as Memorials commemorating them. Most victims worked in the Hasag armaments plant (partly located underground), and they died as a result of exhaustion, the terrible living and working conditions, or in air raids. There is also buried a large group of women deported from Warsaw after the Warsaw Uprising who were imprisoned in the concentration camps of Auschwitz, Ravensbrück and Buchenwald. Afterwards, they worked in the Hasag armaments plant in Meuselwitz, and died on 30 November 1944 in the bombardment of the plant.
The Polish citizens are commemorated by means of a quadruple monument with the names of the victims inscribed upon it, and the following information in Polish: ‘Here lie 71 Polish citizens. Blessed be their memory.’ The Polish forced labourers and concentration camp prisoners, mostly of Jewish origin, are commemorated by another monument with a German inscription that reads: ‘ Here lie 99 victims. They died as forced labourers in the Rehmsdorf, Meuselwitz and Altenburg labour camps.’ Nearby, upon two stellae (one of them is marked by a cross, while the other displays the Star of David) the victims’ names are engraved.
The cemetery also contains a burial section with 150 graves of forced labourers coming mainly from the USSR. This section is marked by a monument that bears the inscription: ‘Glory to the victims, a warning to the living.’
The latest inquiries and investigations into the cemetery have revealed the personal data of 110 persons - citizens of the Second Republic of Poland.
