The greater part of the cemetery is occupied by the graves of Soviet soldiers killed in the surroundings of Olsztyn, Szczytno and Nidzica. The cemetery indeed holds 5,222 soldiers, of whom 4,262 Soviet soldiers, 290 Polish soldiers and 670 airmen of Free France, according to the explanatory panel. It is managed by the office of communal cemeteries, which holds the list of the soldiers buried in the cemetery (9B Poprzeczna Street in Olsztyn).
The Soviet army occupied Olsztyn practically without fighting, on 21 and 22 January 1945. It is not known how many inhabitants were murdered in Olsztyn by the Soviet army during the winter of 1945. By the end of February, about 40% of the town had been destroyed, including most of the old town. The atrocities committed by the Red Army remain present in the memory of the town's inhabitants.
The second part of the cemetery is occupied by the graves of the 670 airmen of Free France, as mentioned by the explanatory panel at the cemetery's entrance. These are French airmen of the Normandie-Niémen air regiment, who, between 1943 and 1945, fought alongside the Soviet air force in the theatre of East Prussia. In reality, the site dedicated to the Normandie-Niémen regiment mentions only 42 pilots who died between 1943 and 1945. The French had indeed taken part in the fighting in East Prussia, notably on the territories of the present-day Kaliningrad Oblast. Several of them died in the surroundings of Königsberg, Baltiysk and Chernyakhovsk. A little more than 100 pilots fought in this regiment. The figure of 670 mentioned on the explanatory panel therefore appears erroneous.
According to Tomasz Stopierzyński, the French buried in the cemetery would rather be prisoners of war, victims of Stalag IB (near Olsztynek, in German Hohenstein), or of its subcamps. It is therefore probable that no French airman is buried in this cemetery. The archives of the French embassy mention In 2003, a monument was erected in the cemetery, dedicated solely to the memory of the French airmen who "gave their lives in the struggle for the liberation of Warmia and Masuria 1944-1945", as one reads in Polish on the plaque affixed to the monument.