In the south-western part of the Main Cemetery (Hauptfriedhof), from the side of Auf dem Gockelsberg Street, there is a large burial site for foreign victims of World War II. The rows of plaques bearing the victims’ names can be found on the slope of the hill. The top of the hill is marked by an obelisk that commemorates soldiers from the Entante. It was erected in 1927, when Koblenz remained under occupation of the French government.
The foot of the hill is marked by a red sandstone memorial in the shape of an altar with an inscription in Cyrillic that commemorates prisoners of war and forced labourers from Eastern Europe. The memorial was created on the order of the Soviet Embassy in Bonn in 1950. One of the sides of this stone block bears a plaque with a memorial inscription in German that reads: ‘Here lie more than 700 men, women and children from Eastern Europe, who lost their lives as prisoners of war or as forced labourers in the years 1941-1945.’
This is a burial site for 68 women and men from Poland. Among these are 6 prisoners of war and between ten and twenty male and female forced labourers who died during the war. The graves of the prisoners of war were moved to this cemetery after the war, from the French War Graves Cemetery in Koblenz. The site is also the final resting place for 40 persons who died after the war as so-called ‘displaced persons’ (DPs).
Cemetery address: Koblenz, Rhineland-Palatinate
Beatusstraße 37
56069 Koblenz
GPS: 50.352666,7.578796
Cemetery administration: Grünflächen- und Bestattungswesen,
www.koblenzer-stadtgruen-friedhoefe.de/friedhoefe.html,
Beatusstraße 37,
+49 261 129 4222
