This is the war cemetery in Brandau im Odenwald.  461 dead from the first and second world war are buried here, among them soldiers, known and unknown, of various nationalities,  forced labourers and displaced persons, e.g. survivors from concentration camps who did not return to their homes.  Tragically, there are also a few graves of children who were born during this time to mothers who were deported and forced to work in Germany.  The cemetery is cared for by the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V., a humanitarian organisation whose tasks include caring for cemeteries in Germany and looking after graves of German soldiers and war victims outside of Germany, also helping relatives to locate graves of missing family members.

The driving ethics behind the organisation is to work for peace.

The inscription in the chapel reads: Our sacrifice – your duty – peace.

A list of all the graves and the people buried is kept in the wall and can be consulted by visitors to the graveyard.  The individual graves are marked with names, dates, nationalities and, in the case of German soldiers, with their ranks.

The sign of the organisation with the details for donation.  The words are the beginning of the German Basic Constitutional Law: “Human dignity is inviolable.”

Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Tombstones or Cemeteries