POW cemetery in Gronenfeld

During World War I, a large prisoner of war camp was founded in Gronenfeld near Frankfurt an der Oder, in which at the end of the war exactly 22,986 people were interned. The largest group, over 17,000 prisoners of war, were soldiers of the multinational Russian army. In addition to them in the camp were the British, French, Belgians, Romanians, Serbs and Italians. The proof of the existence of the camp is the only preserved building until today - the Savior Chapel ( Heilandskapelle ) on the nearby Eichenweg street. This simple wooden structure was built in 1915 as the center of the cultural life of the camp, as it was consecrated by the Evangelical Church only in 1928. There were theatrical performances, concerts, worship and reading for prisoners. The interior design of the premises was created by the prisoners of war themselves, which makes the building a unique place in Frankfurt an der Oder from the point of view of art history.

The consequences of severe diseases and deteriorating nutrition have taken the lives of many hundreds of prisoners. In the summer of 1915, a separate cemetery was established near the camp, where the deceased were buried in accordance with the rites of their religion. The cemetery management systematically recorded the deceased, thus creating the existing ordered register of 581 names with basic biographical data.

The cemetery was designed as a set of systematic burials in the center of which a large wooden cross was located on a stone foundation. Individual gravestones were made in the form of steles, crosses and wooden plates with the names and symbols of faith of the departed engraved on them. After the end of the First World War, the deceased prisoners of war from the countries of the Western Allies were reburied. However, the graves of soldiers serving in the army of the Russian Empire remained. They were taken care of by the German state services, fulfilling their duties under international law until 1944.

Since 1920, a new civil cemetery has been located in close proximity to military graves. They buried the departed from a settlement based on the territory of the former camp after the war. When, shortly before the end of World War II, Frankfurt-on-Oder was declared a fortress city, the Wehrmacht built a bomb shelter near the cemetery, dug trenches and trenches. In the last weeks of the war and in the post-war labor time, the remaining wooden tombstones were burned. Nobody cared for the devastated cemetery, the object was forgotten.

In 1992, civic activists in Frankfurt an der Oder began to inform city residents about an abandoned prisoner of war cemetery. The first step was to work on the register of the departed, created in the First World War. It was possible to identify the names and identities of a large number of prisoners of war. At the same time, historical consciousness changed in the post-Soviet countries - the First World War gradually became part of national history. Thus, it became necessary to study the forgotten period of history, search and study of artifacts. Interest in decades of abandoned cemetery was shown by activists and organizations from Russia, and later the embassy of the Russian Federation in Germany took up the topic. Thanks to the efforts of many private and public persons, the cemetery of prisoners of war was restored and on November 17, 2018 became again accessible to the public. Lists of the names of the deceased are kept in the Chapel of the Savior (Heilandskapelle) and are also available there for researching the fate of the departed.

•  

  entrance

•  

  Cemetery plan

•  
•  

  Lists

•  

  Panorama

•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  
•  

  Status April 2018

•  

  The road April 2018

•  

  April 2018

•  

  April 2018 listings

•  

  Cross July 2016

•  

  List of 1917

•  

  List of 1916

•  

  List of 1921

• Deutsch-russischer Erinnerungsort (German)
• 100 Jahre Kriegsgräberstätte Frankfurt (Oder) (German)
• The cemetery of the Russian soldiers of the First World War was restored in Groenenfeld
• "Russian wood". How in the east of Germany restored the military cemetery during the First World War
• Russian cemetery in Gronenfeld as a symbol of reconciliation of generations
• On the opening of the cemetery of prisoners of war in the city of Frankfurt an der Oder
• In Germany, restored the cemetery of Russian soldiers of the First World War
• https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriegsgr%C3%A4berst%C3%A4tte_Gronenfelde