Hello everyone and welcome to Beater Battlefield. This week, the 16th to the 24th of May 2026, Marks Wargraves Week. This is a very special week in the life of the Commonwealth Wargraves Commission. All over the world, there are three events tasking and showing the different types of work that the Commonwealth War Graves do. Formerly the Imperial War Graves Commission, it was created in 1917 for something that was completely new in the history of warfare. Prior to the outbreak of the First World War, there had been no fought for the dead, but with the mass numbers of men dying during the First World War, it was seen fit that these men needed to be remembered. And all those years later, we're still doing a great job. So, in this series of episodes, I've picked some of my favourite cemeteries to go to, but we're going to do some of the different countries. The Commonwealth War Graves looks after 1.7 million graves around the world in over 150 countries at 2,500 purpose-built cemeteries. And in the UK alone, there's 170,000 Commonwealth War Graves that you can find in every little churchyard and major cemetery. So I hope you enjoy. Hello and welcome to today's episode in this week-long series about the Commonwealth War Graves all around the world to tie in with Wargraves Week. If you go in the show notes, you can find a link to the Commonwealth Wargraves site in relation to Wargraves Week, where all over the world there are various different activities going on, and with it coming up to the half term, perhaps you have one in your local area you might want to take the kids to. The Commonwealth Wargraves do an amazing bit of work, and also in tying with the Commonwealth Wargraves Foundation, which is the charity branch of the Commonwealth Wargraves. Today's episode is about Poland. Now Poland's history has changed many times over the last century. The borders have changed, and it isn't until you actually go to Poland and you visit many of their museums, and just walk through their major cities you see how many uprisings and rebellions they had over that period of time. Poland would find itself in three empires during the First World War, the Austro-Hungarian, the German, and also the Russian, and this does show on the landscape and the towns you go to. There are twelve hundred and fifty Commonwealth war graves located in Poland, of which 231 of them are from the First World War. There were quite a lot parts of Poland which were part of the German Empire, and many of those men will be sent to prison war camps in that area. And then the rest are those who died as prisoners of war during the Second World War, and many of the air crew who perished over Poland. There are five main sites within Poland, and three are looked after by the Commonwealth War graves Posnan Old Garrison, Rodanic Cemetery. I'm apologizing, I apologise if I pronounced that incorrectly, but that's near Krakow and Magnik as well. I've not been to Magnik, but I'm going to tell you about the two other main ones I've been to, that being Posna and Old Garrison and uh the one at Krakow. But when you visit many of these cemeteries, and as we covered in the previous episode, um the Czech Republic, when you go to these massive cemeteries and all throughout Poland and Germany, they seem to have these massive cemeteries which the in Britain we obviously have the big five in the south of England, but they seem to congregate all their graves together. And this is for good reason. As in every country, the burials would be spread over the five corners of all the countries, and in the post war period they decided to congregate them all together. After the First World War, all graves were brought to Posnan Old Garrison Cemetery, and then they'd extend it after the Second World War. It is quite interesting where you find the borders have changed so much, and the Commonwealth War Graves made a point of wherever someone was found in a certain area, they'd be sent to a certain cemetery. Even though there was a when they were attacking the Pinamunda plant on the Baltic Sea, one crew crashed within a hundred metres of Poland, and they were moved 1,500 kilometres to Posn Old Garrison Cemetery when they could have been sent to Berlin. Posnum Old Garrison Cemetery is a very interesting place to go to, and Posna itself is quite an amazing little city that no many people not many people will go to. It has a brilliant Enigma museum because the Poles in those early days managed to crack the code and help save the war, and I always have a soft spot for Poland. Many of those troops, obviously sandwiched between the Russians and the Germans, would leave and travel via Syria and eventually make it to England. And if you ever get a chance and you're in the Perth area of Perth, there is a massive cemetery dedicated to all those Poles who were based there throughout the Second World War. Many of them would die in training, but also many of them would settle there in the post-war period and are buried with their wives. It's always quite funny to see a Morag and Willowjenski buried amongst them, just shows how big Poland had to play during the First World War, as sorry, during the Second World War. And of course, after the Second World War, the British government wouldn't treat them particularly well, and many of them would be killed in Russian captivity. But Poznan El Garrison Cemetery was severely bombed during the April 1945 liberation of the city of Poznan. And when you go to the cemetery, you're first of all greeted by two great big Russian guns, and the cemetery for the Liberators. There's a giant obelisk on the hill near one of the many military museums in this former military site, and that's just worth a day to go to to see all the different museums and then to wander around that cemetery. You also have the cemetery of heroes, those men from Poland who fought in the fight of 1940 and its liberation in 1944, 1945, as well as many political prisoners who died at Fort Seven, which is located not too far from the airport, and this former Napoleonic fort will be turned into one of the first concentration camps located in Poland. This would also be the site of the first gas chamber in a concentration camp used to eradicate the mentally ill from a local asylum. As you wander into the British plot of Poznan Old Garrison Cemetery, you turn to the left and you have the First World War plot. Here we see men from all over the empire, captured many in the early part of the war, and sent into what was then Germany in order to work on the farms. There are a couple of special plots dedicated to cemeteries that were lost through that period of time. Normally they were marked with a large semi-obelisk square. It tells you the story of where that cemetery once was, and then you have the men known to be buried in that area. The cemetery, as I say, would be severely destroyed during the Second World War, and we have photographs of its destruction at that time. But today, even though you're in the deepest, darkest Poland, it looks exactly the same as every Commonwealth War grave site. Located in one of the over 150 countries that you find, the Comwealth War Graves. They are made up of the Portland stone. And the right hand side you have the Second World War plot. There are many graves from air crew who crashed over Poland, and also many men who died as prisoners of war during the Second World War. Located at the back of the cemetery is a plot of fifty graves. These men would go down in history, and for many of us we will know the story of them, but to stand there in front of their graves is something quite amazing. At Posnan Old Garrison Cemetery, we have the fifty men who were executed after their escape from Stalagluffri in the spring of 1944. Sadly, you can't it is a hard and difficult slog to get to Stalagluff Free from Posnan. However, if you ever read Warslov, formerly known as Breslau, you can get the train out to Zagan, and here in the woods you can find the remains of Stalagluff Free. Stalagluff Free would of course be that famous camp made famous by the greatest Aquiscape films, but it was part, a small part, of a larger camp, camp Salag 8. This site had been there since the Napoleonic War. During the First World War it would be used to hold Russians, and when you go to its cemetery, you have a combination of graves of men from Italy from the First World War, the Russians from the First World War, and also those French Napoleonic troops. Opposite it is amazing little memorial which hasn't changed since the Second World War. Seventy-free men, sorry, seventy-six men would escape out of the Harry Tunnel, located at Stalaglove Free, and if you visit the site today, you can walk along the imprint of where the Harry Tunnel once stood. And on top of the memorial are the seventy-six names of those who escaped out of that tunnel in March 1944. And you'll see three different colours on the graves. The three men, the two Norwegian and one Dutchman who escaped, their names are in blue. The others you'll see in either green or in black. Seventy-free men would be captured, and Hitler demanded that all of them be executed. After some negotiation between Göring, fifty of them would be captured and evacu and eventually executed all over Germany, and they are the black names that are mentioned on top of that memorial. Afterwards their ashes were brought back to the camp, and under the supervision of the camp commandant, the remaining prisoners were allowed to build a moron memorial where the ashes could be placed in to remember them. Then in 1954 they would be moved to Posnan Old Garrison Cemetery. Stalagloffry is an amazing site to go to. It isn't as well looked after as we would think, but you can walk through the woods and you suddenly find the footprints of those buildings. You can stand in the former theatre, look at where the blockhouses are, and today it is an army training ground used by the Poles. But to stand at the Harry Tunnel is something quite amazing. And it's one of those things that when I started doing after Covid, I started to go and visit these sites that I've always wanted to go to. I've been a battlefield tour guide for nearly 20 odd years, and sometimes you don't really get a chance to experience and enjoy where you go to, and you have the opportunity to go and visit new places. I always find as being a tour guide you end up caring for everyone else, but when you're looking after yourself, you can get so much more done. But within the area of Zargan, and you can, as I say, travel from Breslau or uh Osloff, and it is a lovely place to go to. You could do it in a day and it'd be a very long day, but I actually stayed within Zargon itself, and you can get yourself a nice room fairly cheaply. But please watch out for the trains because the timings are quite finite. But the site itself actually has its own Great Escape Museum. The Royal Engineers came in the early 2000s and they rebuilt one of the huts, and you can see the reproduction and the the the reproductions of the items that were used in that time. And the museum itself actually has some of the relics that have been found throughout the years and the story of so many men, not just those who are at Stalaggle 3, but those are at Stalagdate, the first independent Prime Minister of India would be placed within that camp, and there are so many stories behind those men. But when you actually go to Posn and Old Garrison Cemetery and we stand in front of the graves of those fifty men, it is amazing to see how international the Great Escape actually was. That Sunday afternoon film or the Christmas film that we'd see of the Great Escape nowhere near mentions the different nations, the Greeks, the Finnish, the South Africans, and all branches of the Commonwealth who took part in that amazing escape in the spring of 1944. The other large cemetery have is located in Krakow, and this itself is very interesting, as all Commonwealth Wargrave cemeteries are, and once you can start to read the cemetery and see from the different plots, you see how diverse this actually was. There are many air crews that were shot down in the summer of 1944. The Warsaw Uprising was designed only to last for three days, but the Russians sat on the side of the river and watched Warsaw burn. The RAF would drop supplies to them, and many of these air crews were shot down, trying to give relief to the people of Warsaw. Then there are two particularly special plots also within this cemetery. There are 38 men who died at Auschwitz from the British Army. When we think of Auschwitz today, we think of the Birkenau site, but outside the city of Auschwitzen there are three main camps. Auschwitz one opened in the summer of 1940 and used to hold many political prisoners and people of the intelligentsia. And then in 1942 Birkenau would be started. IG Farben wanted to have an additional factory site, so they created Auschwitz Free, Monowitz, known as the Bunaverks. This is on the completely different side of the city, but when you go there today, it is a large factory industrial site, and there's only a tiny little memorial that remembers the 30,000 people that died within this site. There is no remnants of the two prisoner of war camps that used to be there, with up to 1,400 prisoners of war, both British and American, with 750 working in the factories at that time. On the 13th of August 1944, a bombing raid hit one of the barracks and killed 37 men. Their bodies were buried in the local town cemetery, and there is a plaque to remember this. However, in September 1944 the cemetery would be severely bombed, and many of those remains were spread to the four corners. When we stand at the plot at the Krakau cemetery, we can read the names of those men who came from Auschwitz, but amongst them there are four unknown soldiers. There are also some civilian graves in this cemetery, and these are actually men of the Imperial War Graves Commission. They weren't the gardeners there, they were the gardeners from northern France. Many men after the First World War would join the Commission, marry local girls or settle in northern France, and then in the summer of 1940, their fate was unknown. All the main men members of the Commission left them there, and they would be invaded and arrested by the Germans and sent to Lambsburg. Many of the other prisoners of war that are buried here died at the Lambsburg prison, but those Commonwealth Wargraves gardeners weren't placed in concentration camps, they were placed in the internment camps at Landsburg, and sadly over the course of the war many of them would perish, and they're buried here at the Krakow Cemetery. Also at Krakow it's very interesting to see many men who died during the Napoleonic War from France, and also those who fought in the several different uprisings of Poland at Krakow. It's very interesting to go to Po actually going back to Poznan, it's very interesting to see for us the eleventh of November 1918 is our armistice day. But for the Poles, it's their day of independence. As when the Germans finished the war, they would try and push them back and gain their independence from there. If you're visiting Krakow, I'd highly recommend going to this cemetery. It gives you a little bit of an insight and shows you something a little bit different. But always read up about who's in these plots, and the Commonwealth War Graves have a wealth of information and they'll always help you if you really need to. But there's so much in there's so much information on the internet. And if you're interested in prisoners of war who died, or sorry, prisoners of war who were held in captivity during the Second World War, not for those who died, but those who survived, we can actually read their interviews, and it's currently on Ancestry. So if you do have a relative who was a prisoner of war during the Second World War and didn't die, please just send us a message, and you might be able to find their interview. But amongst them we have so many of the records of the men who stayed at Stalogluff III, and they write about the horrors of what happened to those fifty men who were executed and now rest at Posnan Old Garrison Cemetery. Thank you for listening, and we'll be doing other countries where the Commonwealth Wargraves are consisted. But please, if you could write any reviews on any of the platforms you find this, it really does help. And please look at the Commonwealth Wargrave site to try and find more of that history.