The recruitment of foreign workers began in the Brunswick region with its high concentration of armaments factories and large state construction projects before the Second World War. There were at first mainly Italians who came as civil workers and became to forced laborers after the surrender of Italy. More and more German were replaced during the war years especially by foreigners from the occupied states of Eastern Europe. Exact numbers are not available. The different camps in the city had a bed capacity of around 15,000. But this tells only a little about the total number of employees in Brunswick between 1939 and 1945. The number of deaths from abuse, poor nutrition, disease or bombing is not quantifiable until today.

The south-facing graves of this cemetery are arranged in series. Almost all of them are without headstones and are overgrown with ivy. Here rest forced laborers from Eastern Europe who lost their life due hard labour or bomb attacks between 1939 and the end of the war in 1945.
In the northern graves, also arranged in series and overgrown with ivy, are buried former forced laborers who didn't want or couldn't return to their homeland after 1945. Most of them have grave stones and inscriptions in their national languages. Almost all of the graves are from the years 1945 to 1954.

The cemetery is surrounded by three monuments for Ukrainian, Polish and Soviet forced laborers and prisoners of war. They can be assigned with the help of their national symbols.