In the early summer of 1943 the decision was made to establish a separate cemetery for foreigners. The Reichswerke “Hermann-Göring” made the area that went by the old location name Jammertal available for this purpose.
The area consisted of a small hill in an otherwise flat landscape, since the earth that was not needed for the development works had been deposited there. The terrain of the cemetery is organized according to a coordinate system—into fields, grave rows, and grave numbers. The dead were usually buried in single graves. The location of a grave was documented on index cards so that it is still possible today to locate the graves. In total, more than 4,000 victims from more than 15 nations were interred there. All ‘foreigners’ still had to be interred on the Cemetery Jammertal until 1951.
Transfers to other Graves
Only a few years after the end of the war, victims of various nationalities were disinterred from the Cemetery Jammertal and transferred to other cemeteries to their home countries or to honorary fields on other cemeteries and interred again. At the same time, all non-Germans who had died in the war were transferred from other cemeteries in the Salzgitter area to the central Honorary Cemetery Jammertal.
The Memorial Place
In the course of 1946, a structured laying-out of the cemetery was initiated. Walks were created and in September, the Allies built a monument in the center of the grave field. Additional obelisks for Soviet, Polish and Jewish victims as well as a wooden cross to commemorate the French concentration camp prisoners were put up. In the 70s, the cemetery was redesigned in a consistent way. The few, very diverse grave stones were removed. Metal plates with personal information were set into the ground at the places of 1235 graves, yet many graves are still not marked today. Five commemorative stones were the first monument that was contributed by the Germans.
In November 2011 eight bookrests were set up at the entrance to the cemetery: apart from information about the history of the place one can find five metal books there which for the first time list all the known names of the victims. Following the coordinate system and the plan of the cemetery, visitors can find the graves.Formularbeginn