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| WorldWar2.ro Forum > Small arms, Daggers & Uniforms > Digging the ground...... |
| Posted by: Elisa April 15, 2004 10:28 pm |
| I make a new thread even though my statement is somehow related to von Maybachs about the finds in the ground.
Gentlemen - why are you afraid of "haunted" goods in the ground?? Why not simply have some HONOUR inside and saying "no" to exploiting old battlefields? These people died there - so don't steal their insignia etc!! That's corpse-desecration! Did you know that the Russians are plundering our (German) war-cemeteries?? The grounds in Russia are amazingly huge - and so are the battlefields (where the rats have already plundered during the past) - BUT - and this is worse - now they go for the WAR-CEMETERIES (!) and tear them off their rings etc. - it's simply disgusting. Of course there should be the "Kriegsgräberfürsorge" (who takes care of the cemeteries) but as the money is getting less and the fields are endless (and the rats are thousands) they have no chance. So every happy buyer of a ground finding should be aware that some low human being stole this artefact from a soldier, right from his grave. Pfui Teufel |
| Posted by: dragos April 15, 2004 11:23 pm |
| Nobody here considered digging the graves. Then, why should it be wrong to dig the battlefields? Personally, as a fallen soldier, I would feel no resentment that somebody would take my insignia for the purpose of cultivating history. Even sold, these items would serve better than six feet under |
| Posted by: RHaught April 16, 2004 12:00 am |
| Have a friend who owns land in the Baltics and does digs there doing the summer. When they come across a body not in a cemetary the proper authorities are called. What is own the fallen soldier is not taken but what lies away is. So, people who are honest do no such thing just those who are money hungry. Don't assume all battlefield relic hunters run to the cemetaries. Plus, those cemetaries in the former USSR that were German or Axis were given no favor. |
| Posted by: Elisa April 16, 2004 11:07 pm |
| the reason is money - German militaria sells the far best all over the world...so who 'd rather dig out a beltbuckle with a star instead of an SS ring?
BATTLEFIELDS are also graveyards, even worse, for these guys have not been taken care of and buried (with a priest etc.). I know a guy who has a cupboard full of ground findings - they're mostly rusty, broken - so the thrill of hunting them is deeply connected to stepping around in the battleground and being "physically" near the soldiers who wore them once etc. - everyone knows that. it's all for little boys, but still a shame to take dead people's belongings. btw. if you were a fallen soldier (how funny!!!!) you'd not post here. your jokes are tasteless. |
| Posted by: Florin April 16, 2004 11:46 pm | ||||
Elisa, I am surprised that there is still something remained to be plundered in the German cemeteries of the Russian space. The first thing happening, immediately after the Axis retreat, was the usage of the wooden crosses from the graves of the soldiers (Germans, Romanians etc.) as fire wood, by the locals. You know, in Russia is cold a half of year... Most of the Axis burial grounds were destroyed in the first years of the Soviet "reconquista". In the 80's, my grandfather talked about the destruction of these cemeteries at past tense. The cemeteries of the Romanian soldiers alone, and considering only Crimea, were kilometers and kilometers of crosses.
Few years ago, while walking through Manhattan, I entered in open street flea-markets. There were enough Russians there (now American residents or citizens 8) ) selling German medals, belt buckle, knives etc. I had less money in those days, but even if I would have more, I am not so sure I would buy something. |
| Posted by: Elisa April 17, 2004 12:51 am |
| friends of mine were in Russia last summer (with the Austrian Kameradschaftsbund) and they saw those corpse-loopers! when they tried to chase them off the ground, they simply waited aside (the grounds are huge) until the group left and - bingo - there they were again.
do you know how many germans/austrians are dead in russian ground?!?! also - it's not the question of remains such as crosses etc. it's about the honour of taking care of those who fell for us - I mean are YOU Romaians or what? normally in RO the mortii are very well honoured - maybe you are the new generation? |
| Posted by: Florin April 17, 2004 02:45 am | ||
I am trying to comprehend if your anger target the Romanians now... If so, why? There is nothing in this topic started with your post to suggest that the Romanians are looting WWII graves. Also, there is nothing to suggest that we, the latest generation of Romanians, have less respect than the previous for the WWII dead. My grandfather was on the Eastern Front, against the Soviets, and his stories about the looted cemeteries referred to those destroyed by the locals in Russia (i.e. far from Romania). His 2 best friends died near Simferopol, in Crimea, and he was not happy to know that their graves were destroyed after retreat. |
| Posted by: dragos April 17, 2004 09:33 am | ||
I wanted to say that I would rather consider my actions while living, not of the things I'm wearing after my death. The taking of the insignia off my body may contribute a little in regard of cultivating history. From a different perspective, after all the atrocities of the war, digging for relics should scare somebody accustomed to the ways of war, very little. |
| Posted by: Elisa April 17, 2004 12:04 pm |
| ## Florin - I think my statement concerning the Romanians is very clear, so don't twist it!!
I said (I'm repeating myselves) - that in RO the death are still honored (not like in the west, where consumption is taking over everything and no one cares for ancestors or those who gave their lives for the now living). So - I mean it in a positive way by pointing out the habits of your people. ## to the administrator - I think the argument of cultivating history is a bit foul - it's been cultivated many times - huge collections of marvelous orders etc. are spread all over the globe - so I don't think a private collection of rusty ground finds will compete with those. another thing - if you try to apply the habits of war to the action of nowadays gravelooters you make a huge mistake - these people (also those who buy the stuff) have NO IDEA of what it may be / was like back then. don't put the joystick-generation into the same honorable position of those who fell in that war! |
| Posted by: dragos April 17, 2004 12:56 pm |
| Ok, I didn't wanted to start a philosophical discussion, just my personal point of view on these trinkets. I didn't dig anything out of the ground and I'm not planning to either. But digging the battlefields and discoverying bodies of fallen military has two positive aspects (if the diggers announce authorities): 1) the bodies can be put to rest properly, reburied in a hero's cemetery for example, 2) the bodies may be identified, since most of these fallen military were MIA. |
| Posted by: Elisa April 17, 2004 07:23 pm |
| Dragos in wonderland....
2 very good arguments - ...no doubt, those who loot graves inform the authorities (ho ho...) ...after being plundered no one will recognise their identity (that's what the diging is all about - getting the metal remains (new to you?) take care! and dream on. |
| Posted by: dragos April 17, 2004 07:45 pm |
| For the nth time, it's not about digging the graves, it's about the barren lands once a battlefield. And read the post of RHaught, not all are infamous gravediggers. You seem to have a fixation. |
| Posted by: Victor April 17, 2004 08:09 pm |
| There was a Russian site (I lost the adress when I mistakenly formatted one of my hard drives) of an archeological organization which dug around Volgograd and periodically buried the human remains it found with military honors. They also found different items in the ground, which some he asked me to identify (a Carol monogram for a Romanian helmet for example, found in a foxhole). Not everybody is meant on looting corpses or graves.
And I personally did not see anyone on this forum suggesting such a barbaric thing. |
| Posted by: C-2 April 17, 2004 08:24 pm |
| As someone who was taken by his mother ,who is an archeologist,from the age of 4 to diferent digging sites around Romania,I can tell that there's no better place to find artifacts than a buriel site.My Mother is specialized in ancient history ,so the graves were a few thousant years old...
Digging in a battel field area and finding a grave by chance and giving him the respect he deserved is one think,but diging in cemeteries is an horible thing in my opinion.Not too many years have passed.... |
| Posted by: Dr_V April 17, 2004 09:49 pm |
| Gentlemen, first I wanna state my oppinion on this thread. My point is very clear: digging in burrial sites (as graves, wrecks or battlefields) for science and history is usefull and OK. Of couse, I mean doing it legally, scientifically, organised and with propper respect. BUT digging for profit is sick and no motivation will ever justify looting graves for money.
Of course, that's my oppinion and you may dislike it, but I think I'm entitled to have one. Now, I have a moral problem related to this subject and I ask for your oppinions and advice. I've aquired a small garden in a country town and I've recently found out that there is a Russian soldier burried underneeth. The peasants told me that in 1945 that soldier was shot by his own commander for looting (stealing) and left dead in the street. The Romanian peasants burried him at the egde of that road, in the place where my garden is now. The grave was orriginally marked by a wooden cross, but now that's gone, the actual spot is undistingushable in the 500sqm garden. :?: My dilema is: should I ignore the grave and cultivate the garden without thinking at it? Should I try to find it (by digging test-pits, I guess)? And if I do locate it, what next? Mark it and leave it there? I wouldn't have a problem with that, I'd make a cross, delimitate the area and than use the garden around. But wouldn't be more propper to exhume the corpse and burry it in the graveyard? Maybe I could find his tags and identify the man, even after 59 years I guess it would be a relief for any surviving members of his family to know what happened to their ancestor. Is this worth, or it's better to leave the grave in peace? Any oppinion you might have will be apreciated. V |
| Posted by: dragos April 17, 2004 10:03 pm |
| I think you should contact first the mayor or municipal office and ask for directions. If you get no satisfactory response, start digging when you have time, and if you find the body, announce a TV post or newspapers. Somebody must react. |
| Posted by: Elisa April 18, 2004 02:36 pm |
| Dear Dr_V
I appreciate your opinion about the subject very much. concerning your garden I'd propose to leave it as it is, in case you're not irritated by knowing he lies there. You could also have it sacrificed by a priest (in case you think he deserves it ..) Duminca fericite Elisa |
| Posted by: Elisa April 18, 2004 02:42 pm |
| dragos...I know it's about digging battlefields (don't ry to misunderstand me by force)
BUT I know of some of our old soldiers that in Russia not all corpses were buried (so that many were left there to rot or maybe burried by the local population, which was not very common I guess... b.t.w. a prove for this are the many skulls + bones one can find in Siberia on the battlegrounds. Even the german headhunters go there to get their original Wehrmacht-skull (no joke - this is as disgusting as the corpse-looters). I hope, you can understand, that for me it's not the question whether the bodies are put into a graveyard or left on a field - in either way they were humans. (hope this is clear now) |
| Posted by: Victor April 18, 2004 04:24 pm | ||
If he didn't have a proper burial, with a priest, than I supposed you should at least try to give him one. If he did, then maybe you should leave him be. |
| Posted by: Von Maybach April 18, 2004 05:34 pm |
| Dr_V,
I think you should try to find the remains of the soldier as soon as possible and than provide him a proper burial. A garden is by no mean a honourable eternal resting place for a fallen soldier (even though, a thief, shot by his own superiors). Another reason to do this, is the fact that the bones are permanently exposed to dangers such as beeing hit accidentaly by a plow or beeing decomposed by garden fertilisers (of course, I speculate, as I don't know what kind of gardening do you practice). Yoy have slim chances of actualy finding out the identity of the man, as the russians rarely had dog tags. (the russian WW2 dog tag was in fact, a small piece of paper with informations on it regarding the soldier kept inside a small bakelite (or even metal) cilinder,... but very often the russian soldiers discarded them with the first ocassion (I don't know why...)... ). |
| Posted by: C-2 April 18, 2004 08:46 pm |
| I'ts the first time I hear about a Russian soldier been killed by his oun comander for looting....
I belive he didn't wanted to share with his superior. Maybee I'm sarcastic but an uncle of my mother was killed with his driver near Barlad by soviet looters.He was over 70 and could not resist.The driver was also over 50.They shoot them like animals. V let him stay where he is .I belive the pesants that beried him made sort of a proper buriel for him then. I pass every day near an soviet military gravyard in sos.Pipera.THe place looks exelent.When I'm thinking about the misery those guys brought to Romania and about the fact that the Romanian cemereties were distroyed .I'd like to send their remains to their country and use the place for a public garden or something like this. |
| Posted by: RHaught April 18, 2004 08:49 pm |
| Find out for sure that the soldier is there, then contact the proper authorities for removal and burial in his homeland if possible
AS FOR BATTLEFIELD DIGGING: First are you that proud of fighting for the National Socialists? as I said earlier MOST PEOPLE WHO DIG are not in the cemetaries!!!!! When they find remains they contact the proper officials and I do believe that Germany as an agency for this and they will come, remove the remains and contact the next kin then give a proper burial. How hard is it to understand this? |
| Posted by: Dr_V April 18, 2004 09:39 pm |
| Thank you for your replys!
I'm gonna think it through, but for now I'm planning to go with my orriginal plan. I didn't bought that piece of land for agriculture, but to make a relaxing garden, with a few trees and many flowers and decorative plants (it's near my grandpa's house). I don't mind "hosting" a Russian underneeth and I guess he wouldn't mind having trees and flowers on his grave. If I'll find the grave when I'll dig pits for the trees than I'll notice the police and they should know how to proceed further. Anyway, I wanna say that I don't care why was that man killed. I see him only as a man that died before getting to live his life (most soldiers were very young). He did received a propper burrial, Romanian peasants are very religious and the men that told me the sory still call him "that poor child", I'm sure he got a prayer and a christian service at his funeral. As I've learned from mr. "Von Maybach", I have remote chances of finding out his identity, so disturbing the grave doesn't seamn to have any more purpose now. |
| Posted by: Von Maybach April 18, 2004 09:48 pm |
| C-2,
such crimes comited by the soviet troops are not singular and their authors diserve the full blame. But, I don't think they do not deserve a proper burial ,... after all, we do not know what he looted (maybe he stole food...) and we know how brutal were the soviet officers with soldiers, and what a misere life the average troops had in the Stalin's Red Army... after all,... only God decides what a mortal diserves after death, -we have to do our duty. Regarding the battlefield digging: I belive that no matter what the authorityes must be announced and the human remains have to be taken and buried properly and/or if possible their families should be announced, or given the soldier's remains. The objects found, if they are personal items and insignia belonging to the soldier have to be buried with the soldier, or (in the case of items such as watches, glasses, lighters, photographs, etc...) given to the soldier's living relatives ... but the items such as weapons (rifles, MG's, grenades...), optics, radios, and equipmment in general, not to mention big hardware such as guns, vehicle hulls, aircraft parts, MUST be taken and preserved/restored. |
| Posted by: Von Maybach April 18, 2004 09:51 pm |
Dr_V .... I wonder how an relaxing garden can be with a dead body beneath it...  Thinking at this would make me unrest when going to walk in the garden. |
| Posted by: Dan Po April 19, 2004 06:52 am |
| [quote="Dr_V"]
In my oppinion you have to find the body and to put it in a cemetery. Of course first its good to talk with the autorityes. (Don t forgot to call a priest :oops: ). Also, you can talk about this with russian ambasy if they want to identify the body or to anounce his family. Maybe its a little bit more complicate than to cultivate the garden but, in my oppinion this is -moral/humanitarian/christian (if u want) - the best alternative. I find that your ideea its like in the Eminescu s poems  . Not bad but ... i still think that is better to be buried in a cemetery.
If u need my help, let me know :oops: . |
| Posted by: Dan Po April 19, 2004 07:13 am | ||
Im agree with you, Von Maybach. At least we have to act in a civilisated and christian manner. If they was criminals .... (and I m shure that a few of them truly was) they still deserve to be burried like in Pipera cemetery. "Rest in peace" for them ... this is all what we can say. In rest it s God bussines ... By the other side im wondering if WE can do something for the romanians who died in Russia ? Do they have at least a "troita" at Dalnik ? Or to Oranki ? |
| Posted by: Victor April 19, 2004 03:22 pm |
| There was even a Mausoleum near Odessa. But I doubt it still exists today. |
| Posted by: mabadesc April 19, 2004 06:23 pm |
| This may sound like a crazy idea, but I think it would be symbolic for all of us on this forum (or whichever members are willing) to each contribute a small amount of money and provide a religious service for this poor soldier.
Dr_V, I hope this doesn't offend you. It wouldn't be an issue of money, but rather a symbolic gesture from the part of the forum. Since it's not my decision, though, I'll leave it up to you and Victor and Dragos to decide whether you want to do this or not and to organize it if you think it is a suitable idea. If you don't like the thought, just ignore this message. |
| Posted by: cnflyboy2000 April 19, 2004 07:51 pm | ||
Dr_V; I don't know for sure what is "right" thing to do, but I can tell what I did in somewhat similar circumstance. While renovating the old house we live in, I found some artifacts: first a rusted civil war pistol in the basement, and then, more disturbingly, a buried Revolutionary (American colonists vs the British) era headstone. According to the inscription, the man died of smallpox (as did many soldiers of that era). There is a "smallpox cemetery" of the era located nearby. I wasn't sure whether the man was buried underneath where I had been digging when I unearthed his headstone, or was in the smallpox cemetery, or somewhere else. (Infected soldiers were quarantined in an encampment near the cemetery) So I re-erected the headstone, and I kept it tended with flowers in summer as a remembrance. Meanwhile, I did some research and located his gravesite, on which a house was built on in the 1960's. The builders must have removed the headstone (a desecration in my view) to where I turned it up 30 years later. I think it was taken as an "antiquity" as it is beautifully carved, with an angel's head, and inscription. For the present, I keep the headstone tended, and in good repair (someone had broken it as well as moved it). In this way the man is still honored in some way, I believe. I think that is the important thing. I plan to try to find out if there is record of his family or of his church congregation. If there is, I will return the headstone to them. |
| Posted by: Dr_V April 19, 2004 08:27 pm |
| mabadesc:
Your ideea isn't offending, but I don't belive it would be propper. Whatever I'll do, I'll do myself, it's my land and so my problem. I'm not a rich man, but I can arrange a propper funeral if it's needed. But your idea, combined with "Dan Po"s last post, made me think at a much more interesting action. If the forum administrators are willing to support the idea, we can organise a fund-raising for building a small monument or a "troitza" in Russia for our fallen heroes. What do you say, gentlemen? Von Maybach: I don't have any problem being in the vicinity or above a grave. A corpse or skeleton is no reason to be unconfortable. Maybe as a result of my proffession, I don't suffer from the very popular fear of cemetrys and dead people. I also don't belive in ghosts, at least not in the form they're imagined by most people. So I was serious about not minding to "host" an unmarked grave in my garden. My only uncertainty is if that Russian's spirit (if it's still around) will be confortable in a garden. That I'll probably never know, I hope it will. I was thinking of raising a "troitza" in the street-corner of the garden. I believe it would be a propper symbol. [[for the forreign members on the forum: a "troitza" is a small hut that hosts a cross, painted with christian religious symbols and served by the local priest when finished. It's a Romanian old custom and servs to remind the travellers passing on the road that Christ is watching over them at all times]] Finally, I wanna say that I'm not very kean to be suspected by the Romanian police, famos for its stupidity, untill they figure out that this Russian is indeed dead since '45 and it's not someone I've killed last year. More, I konw about the grave from a few old peasants, I'm not really sure if it is on that particular piece of land (my garden is, after all, only 500sqm wide and it's neighboring with 3 other gardens, poorly delimitated). All the orriginal trees and fences were destroyed about 30 years ago, when the former owner (who sold it to me last year) plowded it and used it to grow corn. I have this moral dilema, even if I'm not sure of the precise location of the body. After reading your posts, I'll really try to solve it out. But if with the 20 or so tree pits I'll dig I won't find the grave, I'll plant the garden and that's it. The "troitza" I plann to build will have to satisfy the religious considerations regarding the grave. You may think I'm cold harted, but there are worst ends than resting burried in a garden ... |
| Posted by: Elisa May 09, 2004 06:24 pm |
| :cheers:
boys (sorry for the intimacy) - that's what I like about you Romanians - you still believe in something and have a certain attitude towards the death and religious matters. I hope this won't change through the years - like in the rest of Europe! I for myself (as being Austrian - but luckily from the western part, which was not under russian occupation, wouldn't like the idea of having one of those russian soldiers in my garden - maybe an anti-demon ritual would do...kidding, but these guys are not very much appreciated in Austria/Germany - if you know what they did our women + children. and I could imagine, they did the same to romanian women back then?! |