The historic cemetery in Markt Indersdorf was established in 1868 on the site of a former district hospital. For over 100 years it was mainly used as a burial site for those who, for various reasons, could not be buried in the surrounding church cemeteries. During the Second World War, forcibly deported foreigners were buried here.
The cemetery is also the resting place of 32 young infants of forced labourers from Eastern Europe who died in agony in the children’s barrack in Indersdorf in the final year of the war. No photographs of these children have survived, and it is known from the few existing eyewitness accounts what terrible conditions prevailed in the barrack.
Ilian Jankowski was born healthy in the kitchen of a farm in Vierkirchen on 9 December 1944. His life and death are confirmed by documents.
Ilian’s parents Stanisława Jankowska and Ilian Nidziński, as Polish forced labourers, were not allowed to marry. They had to leave their baby boy in the children’s barrack where he died on 27.01.1945 at the age of just 49 days.
1. Birth certificate and baptismal certificate of Ilian Jankowski, private archive of Helmut Größ
2. Death certificate of Ilian Jankowski, private archive of Helmut Größ
3. The house where Ilian Jankowski was born, private archive of Helmut Größ
4. / 5. Ilian Jankowski’s parents Stanisława Jankowska and Ilian Nidziński, post-war photographs, private archive of Rosa Zeiner
6. List of the dead in the children’s barrack in Markt Indersdorf, Bad Arolsen Archive 85925100
7. Young Ukrainian girl Lene Dazischin died of meningitis. Death certificate, Bad Arolsen Archive, 76726771
8. Photo of the twins, US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC. Olga Lamzek, forced labourer, gave birth to twins Josef and Alfred probably during a transport. In the autumn of 1945, UN workers at the Indersdorf Monastery fought unsuccessfully to save their lives.