Dössel
The first and the largest group (1,076 officers, 162 non-commissioned officers and privates) were soldiers from the liquidated Oflag VI E Dorsten for Polish prisoners of war. The prisoners also came from the following camps: X C Lübeck, II D Gross Born, II E Neubrandenburg, VI C Osnabrück and IV C Colditz. 2,817 Poles were kept in Dössel until its liberation. At that time, new prisoners of war would arrive and depart in various circumstances. Despite this, the number of people kept there remained the same. The greatest number of prisoners in the camp was recorded on the 1st of September 1944: 2,296 officers, 287 non-commissioned officers and privates.
Between September 1942 and April 1945, 50 prisoners died. Apart from a few suicides, they would die because of poor conditions. The most tragic event in the history of the camp was the death of 90 prisoners who, on the 27th of September 1944, fell victim to a mistaken drop of bombs by an airplane of Allied squadrons bombing the nearby Kassel industrial centre at night. One of the war crimes of the Wehrmacht, which managed the camp, was a ban on using shelters and anti-aircraft ditches during air raids, which was a violation of the Geneva Convention, also signed by Germany on the 27th of July 1929 and the 27th of June 1939. According to the order of the Wehrmacht command, the prisoners of Oflag Dössel were locked in their barracks immediately after the evening roll call, and the door was reopened at 6 a.m.
The parish cemetery in Dössel is located near the church in the centre of the town. A quarter of its area is covered by a partly hedged camp cemetery with a monument commemorating the camp victims. It comprises 141 individual graves - 139 Polish tombs and 2 of Yugoslavian soldiers.
In April 1980, on the 35th anniversary of liberation, the Dössel Club, founded in 1960 by former Oflag prisoners, organised the first trip to the former camp area. At that time, contacts were established with the inhabitants and caretakers of the Polish part of the cemetery, and in 1984, another visit to the town took place. In 1985, a group of Dössel residents came with a visit to Warsaw. The result of these contacts is, among other things, a commemorative stone placed in front of the entrance to the cemetery.
In 2009, the Town Council of Warburg, which includes Dössel, together with Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V., commissioned preservation and renovation works in the Polish plot. After many years of dirt were removed, the inscriptions were preserved and renovated, the tombstones returned to their previous locations. In the absence of a different list of names than the one drawn up in 1946, the incorrect spelling of surnames and forenames was maintained in several cases. The idea of vegetation covering the graves was abandoned as it made direct access to some of the tombs difficult. The plot with a new green lawn area now has a uniform, neat and aesthetic appearance of a soldiers' necropolis.
