The article addresses the issue of the graves of Polish prisoners of war buried in Lower Silesia from September 1939, which were liquidated after 1945. The memory of the deceased soldiers is still maintained by their families, who search for their final resting places. This issue is illustrated by the example of the Polish prisoner of war Fryderyk Szulc, who died in September 1939 in Wrocław. The unsuccessful efforts of his family in trying to find the place of his burial in Grabiszyn Cemetery are reconstructed.
The article deals with a little-known subject of the Italian Military Cemetery in Wrocław with the graves of soldiers from World War I. It is the only preserved Italian necropolis from that period in Poland. It was established in the 1920s in the District of Grabiszyn at the Italian Government’s suggestion. The cemetery includes the collective graves of Italian POWs who had died in German captivity in 1917–1919. The opening ceremony of this necropolis, together with its consecration, took place on November 2nd, 1928. The soldiers’ graves are situated in four sections located around a central point. They are also commemorated in the form of an obelisk. Between 1943 and 1945 another 48 victims of World War II were buried, among them some Italian POWs and a number of civilians. In 1957 their remains were exhumed and transferred to the Italian Military Cemetery in Warsaw. The only graves which remain in Wrocław were the graves of the World War I soldiers, among others of those who fought at Caporetto, the battle which started their prisoners’ way, finally ending in Polish Wroclaw.
The article presents new findings concerning the course of liquidation of German cemeteries in Wrocław during the postwar period. The utilized archival sources support the thesis that in light of the rules of the law, these cemeteries were destroyed prematurely, without exhuming the human remains and preserving historic elements of the cemeteries; moreover, this process has been not adequately reflected in documents.
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