| Polish Military Cemeteries |
Polish War Cemetery Bologna (Bologna, Bologna, Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy). This cemetery in Bologna (San Lazzaro di Savena) is the largest of four Polish Military Cemeteries in Italy. The cemetery has 1,432 interred soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps who fought with the British 8th Army around the Gothic Line, including Christians, nine Jews, and one Muslim.
Location and access (from the CWGC website for Bologna War Cemetery): Take the A14 and exit in Bologna San Lazzaro. Proceed on the tangenziale and take the exit no.12. From the roundabout of exit no.12 take viale Vighi and at the next roundabout take the third exit. The cemetery will be on your left side immediatly before the Polish War Cemetery. If travelling by train, the nearest station is Bologna Centrale, with a taxi and bus service available (S. Lazzaro di Savena direction). Cemetery address: Via Dozza Giuseppe 32 - 40139 Bologna (BO) Emilia Romagna. GPS Co-ordinates: Latitude: 44.474610, Longitude: 11.399785.
Polish War Cemetery Casamassima (Casamassima, Bari Province, Puglia Region, Italy) contains burials of 431 soldiers and officers who died in the 2nd Polish Corps. Most of these men were wounded at the Battle of Monte Cassino and hospitalized here until their deaths. Burials include Christians, 4 Jews, 1 Muslim, and 9 Greek Orthodox men.
Location and access: It is located on the right, about 4.5 km North toward Bari from Casamassima on SS100, parking on roadside unless the gate is open. Latitude: 40.9851672, Longitude: 16.91469
Polish War Cemetery Cassino (Cassino, Frosinone Province, Lazio Region, Italy) contains burials of 1052 of the 4000 who died in this battle in the 2nd Polish Corps. Another 250 Bellorussians from the West of Belarus (now Poland) are also buried here. These men also died at the Battle of Monte Cassino. While most burials are Christian, 18 Jews are buried in the front rows of the cemetery.
Location & access: The Polish War Cemetery car park is 0.7 km (by road) from the car park at Monte Cassino Abbey. From the Polish Cemetery car park, you progress down a sloping walkway (about 500 metres long) with about 3 flights of about 8 steps each. Arriving at the cemetery gates, there is another flight of about ten steps to get up to the cemetery base. This cemetery is all stone. There is no grass in the main cemetery. The crosses are laid out on a steep terraced stone semi circle. You have to be reasonably fit to climb up there and then on to the garden further up the slope.
The Polish War Cemetery Loreto is the final resting place of 1081 soldiers of the 2nd Polish Corps, who fell in action on the Adriatic Front, in the battles for Ancona and Loreto, on the River Metauro and on the Gothic Line.
Location and access: Via Cesare Maccari 37, 60025 Loreto, Marche, Italy
Some of these soldiers in the Polish Corps had been conscripted by the Nazi troops as they moved through Eastern Europe. Those who had been captured and held in POW camps in the US and Canada were given the choice to join the forming 2nd Polish Corps in Canada. The story from Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, is that the recruiting was done by two Free French Captains.
Kathy is scheduled to present at an assortment of conferences and meetings in 2024, see www.gentracer.com/schedule.html. Descriptions of family history presentations are located at www.gentracer.com/presentations while WWII presentations are at www.gentracer.org/wwpresentations.
Links to other sites about other Polish Military Cemeteries include:
Battle for Anzio
Battle for Cassino
War Cemeteries in Italy by Region
Military Cemeteries
Polish War Graves
