The French National Necropolis Sarrebourg-Buhl, also known as the Marxberg, was established to bury soldiers killed at Sarrebourg in August 1914 and those who died in the town's hospitals during that period. It was built between 1925 and 1930 and burials from other cemeteries in Sarrebourg and the region were moved here.
The exhumed remains of soldiers killed during the Second World War - 266 French, 77 Poles, 69 Yugoslavs, 2 Bulgarians and one Czech - were also buried here. Today, the cemetery covers an area of 1,472 hectares and 1,608 soldiers are buried there.
The graves of the Poles were exhumed from various locations in the Moselle department. Of the 77 Polish soldiers, however, only 43 were identified, while 34 graves were marked with the inscription: "Inconnu - Armee Polonaise - Juin 1940" [Unknown - Polish Army - June 1940]. These are soldiers of the 1st Grenadier Division killed in bloody battles in June 1940, several died in hospitals in Sarrebourg. As Polish units were forced to withdraw to further positions, the fallen were often left on the battlefield and, due to the lack of identity markers, many could not be identified.
Work is currently underway at the Department of Cultural Heritage Abroad and Places of Remembrance of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage to establish the correct details of the soldiers of the 1st Grenadier Division resting in French cemeteries. The attached list contains the names of soldiers buried in the Sarrebourg Buhl cemetery recorded in the form provided by Władysław Żeleński and Henryk Citko - authors of the publication "List of fallen soldiers of Polish military units in France in 1940", Warsaw 2000. Additionally, these data have been supplemented with various versions appearing in other sources and on plaques in the cemetery.
Among the memorials set up at the National Necropolis in Sarrebourg is a Polish monument in memory of the Polish soldiers who suffered death in June 1940. It is engraved with the inscription in French: "La ville de Sarrebourg et les anciens combattants polonais en France, à la mémoire de l'armée polonaise qui s'est battue sur la terre lorraine pour notre liberté en juin 1940 - 'For Our and Your Freedom. Pour notre liberté et la vôtre'" [City of Sarrebourg and Polish veterans in France, in memory of the Polish army that fought on the soil of Lorraine for our freedom in June 1940 - 'For Our Freedom and Yours'].
Photo of the cemetery:
Aimelaime, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0> , via Wikimedia Commons
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Sarrebourg_Buhl_cimetiere_militaire_francais.JPG

Compiled by R. Piątek / MKiDN, X 2025