In the summer of 1944, General Władysław Anders decided to establish a cemetery in the so-called Valley of Death, between Monte Cassino and Hill 593, in the area where the 3rd Carpathian Rifle Division had fought its fiercest battles. The architects Wacław Hryniewicz and Jerzy Skolimowski designed the entire complex. The earthworks and stonemasonry were carried out by a platoon of Polish sappers and several hundred Italian labourers under the supervision of Engineer Tadeusz Muszyński. The official opening of the cemetery took place on 1 September 1945, the sixth anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, but work on its completion continued for several more months. The cemetery occupies a gently sloping hillside, accessed via a road leading from the Benedictine abbey on Monte Cassino. The entrances are guarded by two stone eagles with their wings raised, carved in travertine by the Italian artist Duilio Cambellotti. The stone soldiers’ graves are arranged in an amphitheatre-like formation across nine terraces. The topmost terrace is bordered by a retaining wall, at the centre of which stands a stone altar table, with the insignia of the 2nd Corps carved beside it. Above the cemetery itself, on a slope rising gently towards Hill 593, a cross with arms 50 metres long has been erected; at the point where the arms intersect stands a stone bas-relief bearing the image of the Polish national emblem.

The Battles of Monte Cassino
Over 1,000 soldiers were killed in the battles of Monte Cassino , and around 3,000 were wounded. They came from all parts of the Republic of Poland, largely from its eastern provinces. Most of the graves are marked by simple Latin crosses. Among the fallen were also Belarusians, Ukrainians and Jews, which is why the cemetery also contains plots with Orthodox crosses and matzevot bearing the Star of David. After 1945, three special headstones were erected in the cemetery: that of Field Bishop Józef Gawlina (buried in 1965), General Władysław Anders (buried in 1970) and his wife Irena Anders (buried in 2011).