Belgian War Cemetery Leopoldsburg

This Belgium War Cemetery contains 1313 Belgian war graves from both World Wars. The graves from the Second World War are standing in long rows, whereas the graves from the First World War are placed in a different way.

The War Cemetery contains two chapels ​​as a tribute to the victims of the First and Second World War.

All the way back in a corner at the Belgium War Cemetery in Leopoldsburg are some graves of Russian prisoners of war who died in World War II.

Leopoldsburg was originally a German war cemetery after the First World War.
After the Second World War in 1945, the more than 500 German graves were transferred to the large German collective cemetery in Lommel. Belgian soldiers, political prisoners, deportees and executed Belgians of World War II were buried here, as well as some Russian prisoners of war.

The most important architectural element is the old German memorial chapel, which was adapted in the late 1940s as a memorial chapel for the prisoners of war who died from both world wars.
Instead of "Den bis in den Tod Getreuen" it now reads: "hic jacet belli captivus Ignotus / unknown KG / 1914 1918 - 1940 1945".
Inside, two authentic elements of the German chapel were also reused: a bronze shield with sword and a painted glass depicting the blessing Christ and the apostles Peter and Paul.

During the expansion in the 1940s, a second chapel was added to the east of the World War I cemetery as a copy of the renovated German chapel.
The second memorial chapel commemorates the political prisoners of the Second World War.

Do you have more information about this location? Inform us!

Source

• Text: TracesOfWar, Marie-Christine Vinck & Christiaen Callens
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck
• 3970Leopoldsburg.Be
• WELKOM IN’T KAMP