German cemeteries in Wroclaw

I gave up on fighting the PFs attitude to attachments, here's the link to translation

mediafire.com/download.php?20xpj9zd03crwle


the original article, with pictures:

wroclawzwyboru.blox.pl/2008/11/Pamietajcie-o-cmentarzach-ktorych-nie-ma.html

Enjoy. So to speak.

Let me know if you got it, BB.

Oh, and everybody welcome to share opinions, of course.

Yes, I've got it....thank you again!
(And yes, I'm serious)

PF Poster Softsong told me already that alot of german cemetaries are re-discovered by interested Poles...but military cemetaries was new to me.

It is always a difficult situation to have the graves of enemy soldiers on your own soil. I have different emotions regarding the huge soviet war cemetary in Treptow too...but in the end it's all about young boys who never had a choice anyhow and died far from home. They should at least rest in peace too.

O share the sentiment.

It is dedicated to all the abandoned cemeteries in the city. Nothing really to do with the war.

Anyway, you can see the monument when you fly into Wroclaw. It's on the final approach path to the airport.

Treptow is neat. There is a huge Red Army war cemetery here as well.
historian-at-large.blogspot.com/2010/05/red-army-cemetery-in-wroclaw.html

In Çanakkale war ( Gallipoli ) in WW1, 130.000 soldiers died and 261.000 soldiers wounded. 86.000 Turks, 21.000 English, 10.000 French, 8.700 Australians, 2.700 New Zealanders died.

The war ended with Turkish victory.

After this very bloody war, our great leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürksaid for the 44.000 death enemy soldiers lying in Turkish soil

'' Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Jonnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears, your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they become our sons as well''

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallipoli_Campaign

That is really an extraordinary sentiment...it shows real personal greatness!

Ok, Ok :) I just wanted to be sure you are really interested. Otherwise it would be waste of time.


There's a little nuance here, I think... Military cemetery, to me, includes some central glorifying memorial to the army. Hardly anything to expect in our case. These I would call 'German/Wehrmacht soldiers' cemeteries', and, as I am trying to recall now, this his how they are described in Poland most often. Maybe just my Polish linguistic hair-splitting.


In Poland it's a Catholic (and, consequently, cultural) thing, I'd guess. They are dead now, before the Judge, let them rest in peace, and a candle and short prayer are not out of place either. People now, not enemies any more, after a while. In face of Death we are all equal, like. Children are taught this. Were, at least.


...but, the soviet cemeteries are a different thing. Boys are boys, but their graves carry a hated symbol, and in the middle of it there is a huge memorial to 'our brave and selfless liberators'. Neither in Poland nor in Germany they were seen like that, generally. So it's a brazen lie, first of all, and only then a cemetery.

I didn't mention it before, but that search 'profanacja cmentarzy niemieckich' flooded my screen with pages about desecration of soviet graves. Some of it could've been a leftie spin, but definitely not all of it. The small minority of desecrations were on Jewish cemeteries and on Christian cemeteries, by Satanists, apparently.

Edit:


Seconded...

Ataturk was probably the greatest statesman of the 20th century. Shame he died relatively young.

and especially that those boys weren't knights in shining armour either.

Dead bodies are dead. They can't be your enemy.

They can be a fertiliser, though - or human remains.

Alone the fact that there are German cemeteries in Wroclaw and some other Polish cities is more than understandable, it was Germany until almost the end of WW2.

Thanks BB....I visited many cemeteries in central Poland this past June/July. My guides were two young Polish people who have contributed countless hours of time and labor. Anna and Tomasz. There will be a link posted below to tell you more about them.

If you saw the cemeteries beforehand, you would hardly know anything was there. All brush, trees, and broken stones. Anna just graduated from university and will teach the history of ethnic Germans in the Toruń area. Tomasz is still in high school. Mr. Arak Fiszer is in the midst of restoring the Michałki cemetery (near Rypin), where many of his and my ancestors are buried.

I visited the rural cemetery in Kleszczyn which is still overgrown, but now has a memorial by the old entrance to mark the spot. We parted the brush and trees and explored and I did a grave etching of one of my ancestors. I feel such gratitude for what these young people have already done and continue to do. After the graves are restored, a high school adopts the cemetery to keep it maintained. All over Poland I saw more and more people wanting to leave the past behind and be friends. As I've said before, being half Polish and half German this means a lot to me. I love Poland. And am so proud of how she has survived and what the future will bring. Anyway, here's the link. The website is in both German and English. Chose either:

upstreamvistula.org/Cemeteries/Cemeteries_Others.htm

It depends.

In another thread we talked about WW1 cemeteries in Poland, many of which are renovated nowadays. Christian crosses, Orthodox crosses and Jewish stars stand by each other in peace and harmony.



The care for those cemeteries is natural because WW1 soldiers only killed each other. They didn't consider themselves to be Ubermenschen and others slaves, they didn't slaughter civilians and POWs by millions, they didn't burn and blow up whole cities, they didn't gas Jews.

German soldiers did all these crimes during WW2. What do you expect - that victims who were lucky to survive would take care of deadly enemy`s graves while their own family graves were still fresh?

But Polish - German partnership has done much to improve the situation. Old wounds have healed in most cases. That is why you can see such views in Krakow`s military cemetery:

I think so convex. We miss him a lot :(

Well ... I like your pragmatism.
And my guess is that majority of the young Poles today are ready to share this opinion.
But older generation (even my parents' one), given their post-war trauma and commie brainwashing was ready to accept the most barbaric "pay backs" like destroying on purpose old German cementaries or removal German tombstone inscriptions.

Just in order to prove the "eternal" Polish character of lands Poland gained as result of ww2.

Thanx God it's over now.

Beware of Nazi zombies rising out of their graves.