Fulmecke forest cemetery
The Fulmecke Forest Cemetery , also known as the Meschede French Cemetery or Memorial on Waldstrasse , is the cemetery of the former prisoner of war camp in Meschede during the First World War . The victims of the massacre in the Arnsberg Forest shortly before the end of the Second World War were later buried here. The cemetery is not to be confused with the war cemetery in Eversberg .
history
The Fulmecke forest cemetery is located off the forest road near Meschede directly below the BAB 46 . It was created during the First World War for the prisoners who died in the Meschede POW camp. Most of the people buried there were French, hence the colloquial term "French cemetery". There were also Belgian, Italian, Polish and Russian dead. A total of 935 deceased prisoners were buried there.
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Originally the cemetery was an open area on which the grave crosses stood close together. Today it is heavily forested. In the middle there is a memorial of a praying soldier. The sculpture is the work of a French prisoner of war. Next to the entrance gate was a large winged sandstone lion on either side. These are gone today. The preserved entrance gate made of wrought iron with sandstone wing walls was also built by French prisoners of war. On one side of the wing of the wall is the inscription "Loin de la patrie reposez en paix", on the other side the German translation "Rest gently in strange earth".
After the war, most of the western and southern European dead were transferred to their home countries. The graves of the Polish and Russian dead remained.
The bodies of the forced laborers found in 1947 near Eversberg in the context of the massacre in the Arnsberg Forest by SS and Wehrmacht members in 1945 were buried in the cemetery. A stele erected by the Soviet Union commemorates them . In addition to the red star, there is a Cyrillic inscription on the front , the translation of which is in German on the reverse: “Here, Russian citizens rest, brutally murdered in fascist captivity. Eternal glory to the fallen heroes of the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945. "
In 1964 another 121 victims of the massacre, who had previously been buried in Warstein and Suttrop (Warstein), were transferred to the cemetery. A short time later the cemetery was redesigned. 287 Russian and Polish dead from both world wars rest on it.
In November 2017, the cemetery was selected by the LWL Monument Preservation, Landscape and Building Culture in Westphalia as Monument of the Month in Westphalia-Lippe .
literature
- Jürgen Funke: Remembering a barbaric war crime in the Sauerland. In: Sauerland. 2/1995, p. 43 f.
- Nadja Thelen-Khoder: The 'Franzosenfriedhof' in Meschede. Three massacres, two memorial stones, one memorial plaque and 32 tombstones. Documentation of a search for clues. Norderstedt 2018, ISBN 978-3-7528-6971-2 .
- City Archives Meschede: End of the war - zero hour. P. 24 f. (PDF)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Eva Dietrich: Monument of the Month: On the history of the so-called French cemetery in Meschede. The war cemetery and Soviet memorial in the Fulmecke. (No longer available online.) LWL monument preservation, landscape and building culture in Westphalia , archived from the original on December 6, 2017 ; Retrieved December 5, 2017 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 51 ° 21 ′ 47 " N , 8 ° 16 ′ 51.4" E