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War Cemetery Golm
Usedom, the most easterly island of Germany, has been a destination for tourists since the 19th century. From the highest hill of the island, called Golm and 69 meters high, visitors have a great view over Swinoujscie, the island Wollin and the Baltic Sea.
But even this beautiful place was not spared by World War II. In the beginning and during the war flak was built, an ammunition factory and in the north-east of the island the most modern war factory in the world was constructed, the Missile Research Institute (Heeresversuchsanstalt) Peenemünde. Swinoujscie, today a Polish city, became an important military harbour. In early summer 1944 a soldiers cemetery was built on top of the Golm where the crew of a sunken submarine was burried as well as others who died in war hospitals of Swinoujscie or in plane crashes.
In March 1945 Swinoujscie was crowded with refugees and soldiers. East of the river Swine endless trecks waited for a chance to ferry across the river. The harbour was full of ships with displaced persons from Pomerania, West and East Prussia. Trains jammed with wounded and refugees were waiting at the trainstation for its go, when in the noon of the 12th of March 1945 671 American bombers turned the city into a flaming inferno.
Many thousands of people died that day. The surviving where confronted with cruel scenes. There was no time for a registration of the corpses. The front was advancing and with it much more refugees. To avoid plagues the dead had to be buried quickly, many in bomb craters.
Most of the victims were brought to the Golm with horse waggons or trucks. Identified people were buried on gravefield III (left side of the entrance to the graveyard) but most of the people had to be buried in mass graves (gravefield IV). During the first years after the war only single affiliated took care of the graveyard. Most survivors of the bombing raid moved further west. Since the 1950s the church took care of the memorial site that had almost become a forest again. Since 1992 the community of interest of the memorial site Golm fostered and recreated the graveyard.
On the first of March 2000 the responsibility for the maintenance of the biggest war graveyard of the country Mecklenburg-Vorpommern was given to the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge. A permanent exhibition has been installed in the little pavilion at the Golm. Each year the Volksbund hold hours of remembrance on the 12th of march and on the memorial day in november.
By building the international youth meeting centre Golm directly at the war cemetery Golm the Volksbund developed its peace pedagogical program. Very consciously it sets a sign against right wing radicalism.
The money given by the state for caretaking and managing the graveyard is not sufficient. That is why the Volksbund depends on your donations to maintain this reminder for peace.
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