Why Polish citizens are buried in Germany
During the Second World War, between two and three million Polish citizens were taken to Germany for forced labour.1 They worked in agriculture and industry. Around 300,000 Polish prisoners of war were also put to work, mostly in agriculture.1 Polish workers received low wages and inadequate food, lived in poor housing and had no proper medical care.1 Prisoners from Poland were also sent to concentration camps and their subcamps. Many Poles captured after the Warsaw Uprising were brought to the Dautmergen subcamp where, as one former prisoner recalls, people died every day.2 The dead were buried where they died: in town, village and camp cemeteries.9
“He came voluntarily” does not mean he worked voluntarily
In conversations with local authorities and cemetery administrations I often hear that a grave is not covered by the German War Graves Act because the deceased “came voluntarily”. The word itself makes one wonder: how voluntary was it?
The occupiers tried to recruit volunteers for work in the Reich, but largely without success.1 On 26 October 1939 Hans Frank introduced compulsory labour for Poles aged 18 to 60 in the General Government, and raids and roundups in the streets became increasingly common.1 From 8 March 1940, Polish workers in the Reich were subject to the so-called Polish decrees (Polen-Erlasse). They had to wear the letter “P” on their clothing, were forbidden to leave their place of residence or to use public transport, and were barred from cinemas, theatres, restaurants and churches.3 Intimate relations with Germans were severely punished.1 Those who came voluntarily therefore worked under the same conditions as everyone else.
The War Graves Act covers not only people who were deported to Germany for labour, but also those who were held there against their will.6
Children
Children were also born to forced labourers in Germany. Under a decree issued by Heinrich Himmler on 27 July 1943, the mothers had to keep working, and their babies were placed in so-called homes for foreign workers’ children (Ausländerkinder-Pflegestätten).4 One of them operated in Velpke, Lower Saxony, from May to December 1944. 76 Polish babies were buried there. They died of exhaustion, malnutrition, disease and lack of care.4 My own work began at such a place: the cemetery of the former children’s home in Gantenwald.
Why not all children’s graves were recognised as war graves
In 1955 the Federal Minister of the Interior decided that the graves of forced labourers’ children who had not died from “direct effects of war”, but from malnutrition, poor living conditions and lack of medical care, would no longer be maintained from public funds. This applied to most cases.5 The graves of children killed in air raids remained protected.5
After the war
Not everyone lived to return home. The database includes 1,729 people who died after 8 May 1945.9 The War Graves Act covers the graves of forced labourers only if they died by 8 May 1945. It covers people who died later only if their death was a consequence of Nazi violence and occurred by 31 March 1952.6 Of those who died after the war, the protection status has been documented for 1,353 people: 678 graves are on the list of protected graves, 590 were not added to it, and 85 have been removed from it.9
Protection of graves
War graves in Germany are meant to remain permanently.7 The Act covers, among others, forced labourers and victims of Nazi violence, and it is implemented by the federal states.6 On 8 December 2003 Poland and Germany signed an agreement on the graves of victims of wars and repression, which entered into force on 19 January 2005.8
The war was here too
In my view, today’s memorial sites greatly narrow the map of the war. The graves of Polish citizens collected in the Ostoja Pamięci database lie in 570 towns and municipalities.9
What the Ostoja Pamięci data shows
As of October 2026
The database includes 8,012 people. The state of the grave has been documented for 1,258 of them: 644 graves still exist, 614 no longer exist. 113 of those that no longer exist are on the list of protected graves. The protection status has been documented for 6,346 people: 4,293 graves are on the list of protected graves, 1,798 were not added to it, and 255 have been removed from it. Records whose status has not yet been established are not counted.9
Remembrance is not only fading
Many graves have survived and can still be visited: of those documented in the database, 644 still exist.9 Names are coming back, too: the Volksbund in Hesse has identified three children of forced labourers buried in Wiesbaden.5 In my work it happens that a municipality to which I report forgotten graves commemorates them in the cemetery where these people rest. To me this matters most, because no symbolic memorial stone can replace a real grave and a concrete place of burial.
Why I do this
I document the graves that still remain. Of those documented in the database, 614 no longer exist, including 113 that are on the list of protected graves.9 Every recorded grave is a name that a family can find, and a place where a candle can be lit.