The children’s grave in the north side of the church graveyard of St. Johann in Burgkirchen an der Alz carries with it a sad history. It was dug in the years 1944/1945 and is the final resting place of infants and very young children from the care facility for foreign children in Gendorf, now a neighborhood of Burgkirchen.
Eastern European women, mostly from Poland and the Ukraine who were assigned to forced labor, were required to give birth at this facility. They were then forced to return to their workplaces almost immediately. The nurturing care of the infants in the unheated barracks was most insufficient, and the hygienic conditions of the facility were appalling. As a result, many of the infants lived only for a few days.
The parish priest at the St. Johann Church at the time, was Fr. Karl Fürstberger. He secretly undertook a fitting burial of the innocent young victims. He also recorded 152 death entries in the parish church’s registry. In 1953, the burial site was transformed into the present grave and was consequently designated as a memorial in honor of the young and innocent victims.
The children’s grave
In 1953 the burial site in the north side of the church graveyard of St. Johann Church was transformed into a memorial grave. Later in the same year, on November 8, the grave was consecrated by Fr. Georg Bergmann with the participation of numerous members of the parish community. The angelic figure on the grave is of Franconian limestone and was chiseled by the Fritz Schiller Co. in Passau.
Sadly, the grave was soon again forgotten and neglected. In 1961, a local newspaper reported anew on the story of the dead infants. In 1974, three schoolgirls, acting on their own initiative, regularly planted flowers and attended to the grave. In the mid-1980s, a number of newspaper articles once again called attention to the grave and the fate of the children. By 1985 a local group of women from the social democratic political party SPD began maintaining the grave. Christel Reineke, one of them, passed away at 94 years of age on July 7, 2024.
Commemorating the infants
Since 1988 a yearly memorial service is held. Many groups and institutions, especially many young people, have helped shape the commemoration over the years.
The district of Burgkirchen formally took over the maintenance of the grave in 2016. A year later in 2017, “Kindergrab” of Burgkirchen was founded as the local chapter of our association Für das Erinnern and is now responsible for the present and future maintenance of the grave.
