The municipal cemetery in Hakvik contains the grave of 84 soldiers of the Independent Sub-Highland Rifle Brigade (SBSP). This brigade was formed in France in February 1940 in the number of nearly 5,000 soldiers under the command of General Zygmunt Szyszko-Bohusz in order to support Finland in the so-called 'Winter War' with the Soviets. However, this war soon came to an end (13.02.1940). After Germany attacked Norway on 9.04.1940 and the aggressor occupied most of the country, an Allied expeditionary corps was formed, which included a Polish brigade. It landed at Harstad on 9 May, and during the night of 27-28 May participated in the fighting on the Ankenes peninsula, hitting Ankenes, Nyborg and Beisfiord. On 28 May, the Allies succeeded in capturing Narvik after heavy fighting. In view of the German invasion of France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (10.05.1940), the Allied military forces were withdrawn from Norway. The Independent Highland Rifle Brigade left the peninsula on 8.06.1940, leaving the graves of 97 soldiers who died in the fighting. Narvik was occupied again by the Germans on 9 June. On the grave of the soldiers buried in Hakvik, comrades-in-arms erected a wooden cross with a plaque. During the Second World War, approximately 7100 Poles brought in by the Todt organisation and about 1800 Polish prisoners of war brought in from the German Reich in the spring of 1942 were employed in the Norwegian area, working on the construction of fortifications, bunkers, bases for submarines and other military infrastructure. Some of them died or were killed during escapes from the camps, among other things. After the war, the Norwegian authorities decided to commune the graves of foreigners within Norway. The graves of the soldiers of the Independent Highland Rifle Brigade resting in Hakvik and Narvik were left in situ at the request of the Polish side, but in 1953. additionally, the remains of 20 soldiers who had been taken prisoner by the Germans and died in prisoner-of-war camps were moved to Hakvik, among them seven in the Mo i Rana camp (Nordland), and 11 workers of the Todt Organisation, among them eight who were shot on 31 May 1945 during an escape from the Todt Organisation camp in Torkilseng near Fauske. Among those killed during this escape were 2 brothers - Wojciech and Zbigniew Branecki, Marian Jaworski, Michał Matczak, Marian Murawiński, Zbigniew Różycki, as well as Witold Pławski - son of former naval attaché in Sweden Commander Eugeniusz Pławski, and 17-year-old Janusz Staniak, whose father Tomasz was wounded at the time and survived. They were all from Warsaw. Also laid to rest in Hakvik was Jozef Klukowski, a chauffeur. Following the commemoration, 3 other mass graves of Poles were also established in Norway - in Narvik, Moholt near Trondheim and at the Vestre Gravlund cemetery in Oslo. It was very difficult for the Norwegians to agree on the shape of the commemoration in view of the conflicting demands of the veterans and the authorities of the Polish People's Republic - the Polish parties to the dispute concerning the essential elements of the architecture of the grave monuments. Eventually, after 1956, a neutrally decorated monument was set up using a motif often found on Norwegian graves in the form of burning torches. Ceremonies to unveil the monuments on the Polish war graves took place centrally at the cemetery in Hakvik on 28 July 1957. The area of the mass grave (in the shape of the letter 'T'), is fenced with stone posts connected by chains. The central stone monument is rectangular in shape at the front and features a relief (laurel wreath and flaming torch) and an inscription in Polish and Norwegian. A path paved with broken stone leads to the monument. On reaching the monument there are two plaques on either side of the path with the names of those buried. At its foot was deposited in 1957 a bronze urn with soil from the sites of battles fought by the SBSP The inscription on the monument (in Polish and Norwegian) contains some inaccuracies in relation to later findings: "TO THE MEMORY OF 66 POLISH SOLDIERS / FALLEN IN THE FIGHT FOR THE FREEDOM OF NORWAY AND POLAND / TO THE MEMORY OF 31 POLISH CITIZENS / WHO LOST THEIR LIVES IN NORWAY / DURING THE WAR YEARS 1940-1945 / AND ARE BURIED HERE". A stone plaque is placed at the entrance to the quarters, indicating that a second cemetery with the graves of Polish officers and soldiers killed in the Battle of Narvik is located in Narvik. In 2022, an additional SBSP information board was erected. In 2017. The Bridges Foundation carried out conservation work at this cemetery as part of a task financed by the programme of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage 'Sites of National Remembrance Abroad'. Within the framework of the same task, after obtaining the relevant approvals, the plates with the names of the soldiers and civilians resting here were replaced with new ones with data verified by the employees of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. This work was carried out due to errors in personal data and the lack of military ranks of soldiers on the previous commemoration. Crosses were engraved on the new name plates, with a Star of David next to the names of those of the Jewish faith. It has not been possible to establish the details of 10 of the buried prisoners of war. For one of them, only the date of birth (1.06.1920) and death (22.02.1943) are known.