During the Franco-Prussian War, nearly 1,700 French prisoners were held in 28 barracks near the district of Krzekowo in very poor conditions. Of the 606 of them who perished, 244 were buried in a cemetery built in 1870 on what is now Litewska Street, while the others were interred in other nearby cemeteries (Dąbie military cemetery, communal cemeteries of Golęcino and Niemierzyn). Despite the closure of the cemetery after the liberation of the prisoners at the end of the war, the graves remained under army supervision for about forty years.
Today all that remains of the cemetery is a small monument, made up of a black granite base topped by a white marble cross, standing on a podium in the middle of a mound bordered by trees and vegetation, reached by steps at the end of a paved path crossing the grounds. On the brass plaque of the monument one can read the following inscription, in French then in Polish: "Here lie 244 French prisoners of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870." An iron fence bounded the former cemetery grounds, which were reduced from 1920 onwards by the creation of a small public garden on its eastern part and the construction of Litewska Street on its western side. In the 1960s, the site was vandalised, then renovated in the 1990s. On 10 October 1997, a French delegation officially inaugurated the monument. The cemetery is entered in the town's register of historic monuments.