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ID: WOJ-000408-W (CH-0542)

Mass grave of soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Rifle Division at Rosenberg Cemetery

ID: WOJ-000408-W (CH-0542)

Mass grave of soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Rifle Division at Rosenberg Cemetery

On the night of 19 to 20 June 1940, soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Rifle Division fighting in France crossed the Swiss border. They were interned by the Swiss authorities and stayed in Switzerland until the end of the war. Winterthur was home to the largest academic camp for interned soldiers in Switzerland. It was a centre organised according to a military scheme, where both a military and an academic administration were set up. It interacted with the Polytechnic and the University of Zurich. Six polytechnic faculties (architecture, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry, agriculture and forestry) and four university faculties (medicine, veterinary science, pedagogy and law) were established here. A total of 419 soldiers studied at Winterthur. University internment camps were also established in Freiburg and Herisau. Between 1940 and 1946, 7 soldiers of the 2nd DSP were buried in the Winterthur cemetery, as well as Professor Ludwik Eberman of the Lviv Polytechnic who died in 1945 (lecturer at the Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule in Zurich, involved in the education of Polish students during their stay in Switzerland). These graves were scattered in the cemetery, but in the 1960s, due to the planned reconstruction of the cemetery, the Swiss authorities approached the Polish authorities with a proposal to exhume and place all the dead Poles in one common grave. The Council for the Protection of Monuments to Struggle and Martyrdom funded the exhumation and cremation of the remains. The urns were placed in the grave, on which a monument by Antoni Karol Slezak was erected and unveiled in 1969. In 1991, the Soldiers' Circle of the 2nd DSP refurbished the monument, making changes to the inscriptions that were not agreed with the OPWiM Council. In 2007. The OPWiM Council made a replica of the memorial in granite, after final agreement on the content of the inscriptions and the list of names. The monument consists of 2 vertical cuboidal elements (the left one higher than the right one by 11 cm), which have been slightly undercut and rounded in the lower parts. The contents of the inscription on the left side: "TO THE POLISH / SOLDIERS / OF THE 2ND DIVISION / OF THE INFANTRY RIFLEMEN / WHO DIED / IN EXILE / THE COUNCIL / FOR THE PROTECTION OF THE MEMORY / OF BATTLES / AND MARTYRDOM //. DEN POLNISCHEN / SOLDATEN / DER 2 SCHÜTZENDIVISION / DIE IN DER FRENDE / GESTORBEN SIND / RAT / FÜRS BEWAHREN / DES GEDEHKENS / AN DIE KÄMPFE / UND DAS MARTYDIUM" On the right: "BARLINSKI MARIAN / 1910 - 1943 BUCZKIEWICZ JERZY / 1915 - 1945 EBERMAN LUDWIK / 1885 - 1945 HALKA JULIAN / 1917 - 1944 KĘDZIAK JAN / 1899 - 1945 SZTYMELSKI JAN / 1915 - 1946 TOMASZEWICZ ANTONI / 1900 - 1944 ZALESKI JOZEF / 1900 - 1945"
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List of buried persons

8

Projets connexes

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