On the slope of the mountain topped by the Monte Cassino monastery is a cemetery with 1,072 graves of soldiers of General Władysław Anders' II Corps who fell during the decisive assault on the German fortifications in May 1944. Anders decided to create the cemetery towards the end of the battle and already two weeks after the end of the fighting, in June 1944, a 12-metre high metal cross was placed on a concrete base, at the foot of which two stone slabs with inscriptions in Polish and Latin were laid. The whole establishment was created at a rapid pace, thanks to the efforts of Polish soldiers and officers.

Melchior Wańkowicz described the completed complex as follows:

"By means of the stairs we ascend to a great curved plateau covered with travertine (this is what the Colosseum is made of). The entrance is guarded in travertine by two huge eagles carved by Prof. Cambellotti on three-metre-high pilasters with powerful talons and hussar-like wings, reminiscent of Szukalski. In the middle of the 1,400 m2 plateau is a 16-metre-high virtuti militari cross with an ever-burning candle. The plateau is surrounded by an amphitheatre of nine terraces made of limestone boulders. On each terrace in a double row of graves - on each a cross of grey-cream travertine and a slab with a deeply-inscribed inscription. One thousand and seventy graves. One walks towards them from below, from the plateau from this great virtuti militari cross and from this flaming candle by a monumental white staircase 47 metres wide. On the uppermost terrace, a lump of boulder - an altar and across the retaining wall - the wrought-iron emblems of the troops. And higher up, on the slope rising to 593 - a hedge cross; its arm - 50 metres; its centre - an eagle, a bas-relief in Montecassin limestone measuring 6 by 7 metres. As one walks down from the top of the cemetery, down a white wave of stairs, a strong inscription running in a two-metre antique across the plateau says: Passerby tell Poland that we have fallen faithful in her service'.

Designed by Polish officers, the cemetery was realised immediately after the end of hostilities by Polish soldiers, thanks to the material and technical support of the British command, with the participation of Italian sculptors (assisted, among others, by the Polish artist Michał Paszyn). The power of the impact of one of the most outstanding monuments of the Second World War is determined by the use of the landscape situation, as well as the simplified plastic forms that make up the suggestive composition of the signs.

The cemetery occupies the area of the bloodiest battles of the Polish troops. In 1970, General Anders, who wanted to rest among his soldiers, was buried in the middle of the cemetery. On the neighbouring hills are memorials to Polish soldiers from other units, as well as British and German cemeteries.

A great national memorial and a magnificent monument still finds itself in a paradoxical historical situation. Often visited by Poles (and not only), widely known, a place of great national celebrations - but on the other hand absent in the history of Polish art. A work of forgotten artists, it has not been given its rightful place among the outstanding commemorative creations of which we have so many in our culture.