Gardelegen

Columns of 100 prisoners each were directed to a brick barn belonging to a large farm - Gut Isenschnibbe, about 2 kilometres away. Before the arrival of the prisoners, the floor of the barn was covered with straw, which had previously been poured with gasoline. After more than 1,000 people were locked in the building, the straw was set on fire by shooting at it from machine guns with phosphorus ammunition. The prisoners managed to extinguish the flames twice with their jackets, but the executioners used different tools: personal weapons of the officers and members of the fascist party, machine guns and phosphorus hand grenades. The crime engaged local party officers, SS and Waffen SS members, air force soldiers, a special unit of paratroopers, police, Hitlerjugend, Volkssturm, clerks, the labour service, technical emergency service and fire brigade. The mass murder lasted until the evening, after which the Gardelegen civilians moved some of the corpses to a nearby pit and covered them with a thin layer of earth. In order to destroy the evidence of the crime, additional gasoline was brought from the town, which was to be used to burn the recognisable remains. The victims of the mass murder came from Poland, Russia, Hungary, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Spain and Mexico. Only 305 names of the victims were determined.

Exactly 24 hours after the crime, the town defence signed unconditional surrender. On the 15th of April, American soldiers discovered the mass murder site. The main perpetrator, the local regional NSDAP and SS Obersturmbannführer Gerhard Thiele, was never caught. He was identified when he died in 1994.

On the 21st of April, the command of the American Army forced the inhabitants of Gardelegen and the surrounding area to help exhume the people who had been buried quickly and carelessly. For four days, 250-300 town inhabitants were moving the corpses or burnt body parts to the cemetery about 300 metres from the crime scene. Each victim rested in an individual grave, on which a white cross or the Star of David was placed. The necropolis was granted the status of a military cemetery.