Cmentarz radzieckich jeńców wojennych
Bliżyn – Jastrzębia
Cemetery of the Soviet prisoners of war, 1941 - 1943
In October 1941, the Nazis established a camp for the Soviet prisoners of war in Bliżyn. In the camp there were about 8000 prisoners who were working in a quarry in Gostków and a sawmill in Wojtynów. Their living conditions were very poor. Starvation, diseases and overwork caused that many of them died. Those and the ones who were simply murdered have been buried in mass graves near the village of Jastrzębia. The camp was liquidated in the end of 1942 and, instead of it, in March 1943 the Germans established a labour camp, which later on, in 1944, was turned into a subsidiary of the concentration camp in Majdanek. Jews, and soon after also Poles, were being sent there, which altogether made about 5000 people who went through the camp. It has been finally liquidated in August 1944.