About us

“Forgotten Cemeteries in Masuria” is a German-Polish cooperation project of the Chair of Modern History at the Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf, the Department of Landscape Architecture at the Warmian-Masurian University in Allenstein/Uniwersytet Warminsko-Mazury Olsztyn and the Borussia Foundation in Allenstein/Fundacja Borussia Olsztyn. The website was originally initiated by Dr. Sabine Grabowski and the Gerhart-Hauptmann-Haus Foundation/German-Eastern European Forum in Düsseldorf.

With annual work camps for students from the universities of Düsseldorf and Olsztyn between 2017 and 2023, forgotten cemeteries in the European border region of Masuria have been freed from wild growth. The graves have been cleaned, inventoried, paths and locations are reconstructed and documented. In addition, the students have researched the history of the people who found their final resting place in the forgotten cemeteries in the German and Polish archives and by evaluating published sources. 

Cooperation with local initiatives and schools was intended to help ensure that the cemeteries continue to be looked after and preserved as a shared cultural heritage. 

The rediscovered grave sites are documented and the researched stories are made accessible on the website “Forgotten Cemeteries in Masuria”. The site is therefore also a contact point for family researchers. We invite you to explore the traces of Masurian history with us.

All texts on the individual cemeteries and graves are based on research by students who participated in the annual field trips. The authorship of the texts is as follows:

Texts for Groß Steinort cemetery were written by: Prof. Dr. Christoph Nonn

Texts for all further cemeteries were written by: Hannah Elena Nicklaus