Friedhof Bremen-Osterholz

Cemetery description

The Osterholz cemetery in Brema is the largest necropolis in the city and the central memorial site commemorating the victims of World War II. There are two burial sites that contain the graves of Polish citizens killed during the war.
One of them is section ‘K’ which, according to the latest data, contains the remains of more than 6,000 victims, mostly concentration camp and the Farge work education camp prisoners as well as prisoners of other forced labour camps. The central part is marked by a monument entitled ‘Brotherhood in death’. On its left side, there is an oblong hill with stone plaques that mark the ash grave of 1,367 prisoners of various types of camp, including 577 concentration camp prisoners of at least 10 nationalities. The grave was established in 1947. The plaques have the victims’ names and nationalities inscribed upon them. Fortunately, their personal data are available now since, contrary to the guidelines of the war-time authorities, the labourers of the Riensberg crematorium saved the lists of names and secretly refused to scatter the ashes over the nearby fields. In the post-war years, the remains of other 783 unidentified prisoners from the Farge camp (1949), 17 from Neuenkirchen (1949), and the ashes of prisoners from the Farge, Oslebshausen, Rienspott, and Schützenhof camps (1950) were moved to the site. Section ‘K’ is also the final resting place for German soldiers who fell in World War I and World War II.
Another memorial site which is the final resting place for war victims is located in burial section ‘NN’ (unidentified persons), which holds the graves of 780 foreign victims, forced labourers mostly. The central part has a bronze monument by Gerhart Schreiter, entitled ‘Two women in mourning’. The deceased were forced labourers, prisoners of war, and concentration camp prisoners. As of 1948, the remains of victims buried in the local cemeteries were moved to this burial site - 192 unknown citizens of the USSR from the Jewish cemetery, 446 remains from the mass graves located next to the railway track in Oslebshausen, from the Bockhomer Wald area, and the remains of 142 foreign citizens. The state of preservation of the burial section and the memorials is good (2018).

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