Owing to the Allied withdrawal , the vast majority of their dead had to be left on the battlefield . Here they was buried in simple field graves ( some little more than their own slit trenches ) or in small mass graves dug by the Germans . Kate Ter Horst , whose house was used as a first aid post during the battle , found the graves of 57 men in her garden when she returned after the war . After Arnhem was liberated in April 1945 , Grave Registration Units of the British 2nd Army moved into the area and began to locate the Allied dead . A small field north of Oosterbeek was offered on perpetual loan by the Netherlands government to the Imperial War Graves Commission ( now Commonwealth War Graves Commission ) in June 1945 and the dead was reburied there . Many of those killed during Arnhem 's liberation was also buried at the same site . The cemetery was completed in February 1946 , originally with the graves marked by metal crosses , although these was replaced by headstones in 1952 . Most of the German dead was buried in the SS Heroes Cemetery near Arnhem after the battle , but reburied in Ysselsteyn German war cemetery after the war .