Salzgitter Jammertal

War victims were also buried at the cemetery, located at Peiner Straße in the district of Salzgitter-Lebenstedt, after the war ended. In late 1940s and early 1950s, several bigger-scale exhumation actions were carried out there. This is when war victims that had been buried in other locations were brought and interred here. The first attempts of tidying up the cemetery and of publicly commemorating the victims took place in the 1970s.

In the necropolis, there are several monuments and stone plates informing the visitors about the persons buried here. At the entrance to the cemetery, there is a plaque with the following words:

GRÄBERSTÄTTE JAMMERTAL

DEN OPFERN VON KRIEG

UND GEWALTHERRSCHAFT

1939–1945

Jammertal cemetery

To the victims of war

and despotism

1939–1945 [translated from Polish]

Between the first rows of the graves, there are five stone plates with the following inscription:

AUF DIESEM FRIEDHOF RUHEN 2970 OPFER DES KRIEGES UND DER GEWALTHERRSCHAFT 1939–1945

BELGIEN, BULGARIEN, CSSR, DEUTSCHLAND, FRANKREICH, GRIECHENLAND, ITALIEN, JUGOSLAWIEN, NIEDERLANDE, ÖSTERREICH, POLEN, RUMÄNIEN, SPANIEN, UNGARN, UDSSR

The cemetery is the burial place of 2,970 victims of war and despotism of years 1939–1945

Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Austria, Poland, Romania, Spain, Hungary, the Soviet Union [translated from Polish]

In 1946 on the initiative of Polish, Yugoslav and Russian liaison officers form the headquarter of the 5th British Infantry Division, a five-metre high obelisk of red granite was erected there. It was unveiled during the ceremony of the first anniversary of the end of World War II. The four surfaces of the obelisk's pedestal bear inscriptions in Polish, Russian, Serbian, English and German, each one individually proposed by representatives of those countries. In the centre, there is a plaque with a forged crowned eagle and the Polish inscription on the pedestal reads:

OFIAROM PRZEMOCY RODACY

KRÓL ŚWIATA WZBUDZI NAS, KTÓRZY ZA JEGO SPRAWĄ UMIERAMY. NA WIECZNEGO ZMARTWYCHWSTANIE

II. MACH. VII. 9

On the right-hand side of the centrally situated obelisk, there is another one, made of black granite, commemorating Polish war victims. Unfortunately, there is no information about the initiators and the time of erecting the obelisk. The monument was probably made between 1948 and 1950 on the initiative of Polish liaison officers from the British Army or Poles employed in the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), whose official duty was to take care and keep in touch with their compatriots remaining in Salzgitter camps for Displaced Persons (DPs). There is a cross on the obelisk and below it - the crowned eagle and date: 1939–1945. In the centre, there is an inscription in Polish:

TUŁACZOM… ZA UMIŁOWANIE WIARY I KRAJU RODZINNEGO

OFIAROM PRZEMOCY SPOCZYWAJĄCYM NA WROGIEJ NIEWDZIĘCZNEJ ZIEMI, W HOŁDZIE RODACY!

The above inscription is accompanied by a list of names (in alphabetical order) of Polish victims of war from the area of Salzgitter who were buried at the Jammertal war cemetery. The list includes several hundred names of forced labourers and prisoners of war from over a dozen forced labour camps, work education camp No. 21 in Salzgitter-Hallendorf and three branches of Neuengamme concentration camp. Apart from the first name and surname of the interred, the following information is included: date and place of birth, date and place of death, death certificate number and name of the appropriate office of vital records, address of the relatives, cause of death and exact place of burial. The list was prepared on the basis of materials provided by Arbeitskreis Stadtgeschichte e.V. and the Salzgitter town hall.