Berlin-Reinickendorf, Friedhof Reinickendorf I

In 1945, 77 fallen or deceased soldiers and civilians were buried in the Freiheitsweg cemetery, the majority of whom were foreigners, especially forced laborers. Among these dead were Americans, Belgians, Estonians, French, Dutch, Italians, Poles, Russians, Spaniards and Czechs. Some of them were later transferred to other cemeteries in the 1950s, when the various nations buried their dead together in designated cemeteries on their own initiative, e.g. the French and Belgians at Heiligensee Cemetery or the Italians at Zehlendorf Forest Cemetery. Only a few graves with permanent resting rights remained. The last ordinary resting rights in this cemetery expired in 1975. Due to its small size, the cemetery was earmarked for closure and rededication as a park for economic reasons. However, it was then decided to relocate the graves of the victims of war and tyranny from the row graves mixed with ordinary graves from other Reinickendorf cemeteries to the Freiheitsweg cemetery and to continue to keep it exclusively for these graves. By 1978, 2178 graves with 2356 bodies had been moved from a total of 8 cemeteries to the Freiheitsweg cemetery. This included the graves of the dead covered by the Graves Act from the former institutional cemetery of today's Karl Bonhoeffer mental hospital, which was closed and scheduled for closure. During the Third Reich, an institution for the mentally ill existed here. The cemetery chapel was then redesigned in accordance with the new task of a memorial site, in a dignified manner to promote the remembrance of the dead.