The French military cemetery of Gdańsk was created to gather together the bodies of Frenchmen who died or were killed on Polish territory, buried in the voivodeships of Olsztyn, Bydgoszcz, Koszalin, Szczecin and Upper and Lower Silesia.
These are prisoners of the Second World War, political deportees, S.T.O. recruits, Alsatians forcibly incorporated into the German army, or escapees from detention camps who fought in the Polish resistance. There are also a few soldiers of the 1870-1871 war, who died in captivity.
The land on which the cemetery stands was ceded by Poland to France in 1948 for a period of 99 years. The first burials date from that time.
The cemetery is situated on a hill overlooking the port of Gdańsk. It covers 10 hectares and gathers together 1,359 Frenchmen, of whom 832 have been identified. A monument, made up of three stylised crosses raised on a stone podium, was built from a model presented by Mr Adam Haupt, professor at the School of Fine Arts of Gdańsk, and inaugurated on 2 November 1961.