This small cemetery is the chief burial place for those murdered by the Nazis during WWII either in police detention or in the early years of the Stutthof Concentration Camp, before it was fitted with its own crematorium.

Originally opened at the end of the 19th century in the village of Zaspa, the cemetery was largely used as a paupers’ graveyard. The start of WWII saw it become the chief burial place for the victims of the Stutthof camp and it is estimated that there are up to 14,000 bodies here who were killed by the Nazis. The cemetery became a national memorial following the war and was re-organised on a number of occasions in the following years. Bodies were also exhumed from various places so they could be moved to this one graveyard where they could be remembered together. Bodies lying here include the Polish customs officers from the pre-war border at Szymankowo who were murdered by their German counterparts on the first days of the war. Also now re-buried here are the workers of the Polish Post Office in Gdansk who were the subject of one of the first military operations of World War II. For many years it had been unclear what had happened to the bodies of the 38 men after they had surrendered and being taken away by the Nazis. Their bodies were finally discovered buried in a corner of this cemetery in August 1991. They are now buried together in a red-brick mass grave which carries each of their names. Most visible of all are the large concrete crosses with the names of some of the victims, their trade and their place of death. Most died in Stutthof. It’s amongst these that you will find the names of Bronislaw Komorowski and Marcin Gorecki, both local Catholic priests who were murdered in Stuffhof at Easter 1940 and later beatified by Pope John Paul II.