Camp Cemetery Chemnitz-Ebersdorf

Not far from the Ebersdorfer Stiftskirche (on Mittweidaer Str 79) is the idyllic, park-like Ebersdorfer cemetery (Der Ebersdorfer Stiftsfriedhof). Buried there are over 600 POWs from WW1.

During the war, over 20,000 POWs were held in the nearby King Friedrich-August barracks -- mostly French and Russian, but also Belgians, Serbians and Italians. Prisoners were forced to work in quarries. Conditions were bad, with outbreaks of typhus, dysentery and cholera. Still, there apparently were musicians and artists among the prisoners.

In 1916, one of the POW survivors, French painter and sculptor David Debrock, created a monument in memory of those who died. The sandstone monument is about 2 meters high and weighs 3.5 tonnes. Next to the statue of a grieving woman is a large surface with the words, "Les prisoniers de guerre de Chemnitz à leur camarades 1914-1918."

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Source

• Text: Anne Palmer
• Photos: Jens-Erik Janke
• http://www.mdr.de/
• http://www.ebersdorf.kirche-chemnitz.de/stiftsfriedhof.html