In the middle of the field between Dammereez and Dersenow stands a stone cross. The roughly hewn red granite commemorates a murder that is said to have taken place at that spot in the late Middle Ages.
About 750 meters behind the exit of Dammereez, on a dirt road in the direction of Dersenow, you can see from a distance the stone cross, about 160 centimeters high, which is surrounded by a small pile of rubble. These stones, about the size of a fist, are almost always found at the so-called atonement crosses. According to old custom one wanted to cover a slain in such a way, in order not to let arise at all the suspicion of an act of murder. The superstition that the dead could rise from the dead and take revenge for the cowardly murder also led to the erection of such expiatory crosses. At that time it was believed that the dead person could be banished and thus made harmless. However, there are no documents or written records about the Dammereezer stone. Only a legend tells that the cross was erected at the scene of the crime as atonement for a manslaughter. Whether the person killed was a shepherd is not documented. In the imagination of the inhabitants of that time, however, the cross was always mentioned as a symbol for a shepherd; the stones placed around the cross were supposed to symbolically represent the flock of sheep. This is how the cross got the name "shepherd's stone".
