A soldier’s story

[Carol I]

I first thought of posting this story at “Grandpa’s story about his fights”, but as you will see it does not quite fit in there.

It is the story of my wife’s grandfather and his participation to WWII. He was a school teacher called under arms as a 2nd lieutenant in the 37th Infantry Regiment. He was wounded at Odessa in 1941 and has received two or three weeks convalescence leave to visit his family (wife, a boy and a girl). Then he left again for the front line. He never came home.

I am wondering if after this many years it will be possible to find out what has happened to him. His son remembers that the last package his wife sent him came back with a big note saying “PRIZONIER” (prisoner). Yet his capture was never confirmed officially. Once, his daughter saw his personnel file in the military archives but she was too afraid to look inside. Later it was too late.

One WWII survivor told his son that he went on patrol duties one night and he never came back. I wonder if this was really the truth and not a “sweetened” story that hid what has really happened.

Another interesting story comes from my wife. She once met on a train with a nice old man that enjoyed his newly received veteran rights and was travelling across the country. Among other things he told the story of how he escaped death. At Stalingrad he was a courier and one day he was sent with a message from the commanding officer of his company to the commanding officer of the regiment, a colonel treated in a field hospital well behind the lines. Next day the Russians attacked and massacred his whole regiment. He claimed that this was the regiment of my wife’s grandfather and that he personally knew him. Anyhow, we doubt that this is really true given another story he told to my wife. The reason for the colonel being in the hospital was a nervous breakdown following an order received from the Germans. They ordered him to bomb and destroy (hence we may talk about an artillery regiment, not an infantry one) a village where some German units were engaged in combat with partisans. The Romanian officer replied that there were innocent civilians in the village. “They are supporting the partisans, so they deserve it” said the German. The Romanian officer tried again to avert the order by saying that their fire would kill the German units still engaged in combat. “Whatever, we have reserves” was the German reply. Apparently this was enough to crack the colonel.

Coming back to my wife’s grandfather, he was not the only one in his family to go to war. One of his brothers was also on the front line as a sergeant. He distinguished himself so that he received the war badge of the Military Virtue Medal (the equivalent for the lower ranks of the Michael the Brave Order) and as a further reward he was discharged from the army. Back home he became restless and he decided to enlist again if he was placed in his brother’s unit. His request was granted and he also went missing without a trace. A third brother was taken prisoner on the Eastern front and returned home after many, many years. He died a few years ago.

I guess that these stories also have to be gathered in order to remind us and others what wars are in reality. My wife’s grandfather was only 30 (probably younger than most of the people on this forum), yet we keep referring to him as “grandfather”. His children never received any veteran pension from the state as he went missing on the Eastern front (even though they were not targeted themselves by the authorities afterwards), the cruel irony being the fact that in his last letter home he tried to encourage his wife by saying that whatever happened to him they will be provided for. He received the Knight’s cross of the Order of the Crown in 1942 (most likely for Odessa) and the Knight’s cross of the Order of the Star in 1945 (a rather cold and futile consolation for his family as he never came back). By the way, only the award certificates arrived and we personally bought the badges for his son a few years ago.

I wonder if anyone has any knowledge about what has really happened to him?

Carol I

[johnny_bi]

Hmmm... I think that there are thousands of such stories... My grandfather lost also two cousins on the East Front... He never knew what happened to them... They were MIA (missing in action).

[dragos]

One of my grandmother's brothers, Gheorghe Teodorescu, is MIA at Stalingrad. It was 2nd lieutenant engineer - employed in the workshops behind frontline. Nevertheless, he was caught in the pocket of Stalingrad. Rumors say that in the Christmas of 1942 he tried to escape the encirclement together with a comrade, on foot. After a long way through the frozen steppe, he remained behind, being exhausted. His comrade managed to escape, but nobody knows what has happened with Gigel.

[Carol I]

QUOTE

Hmmm... I think that there are thousands of such stories...

I completely agree with you, but wars are not battles won or lost by faceless and nameless soldiers, but by real people. It may very well be that for some commanders they are simply cannon fodder, but history has proven once and again that those were not the great military commanders. We should therefore gather the stories of all the combatants great or small, victorious or fallen, lucky or unlucky, because history is written by all of them.

We may tend to forget too easily the countless stories of the anonyms who did not manage to tell their stories to their grandchildren. And we have nothing but to lose from this attitude. I have recently been to Paris where among other things I was impressed by one small memorial plaque of which the city is so full. It was on the wall of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and said something like: “On this spot … (five names) fell on 24 August 1944. During the fight for the German Headquarters that had residence in this building the armoured car of these soldiers was caught under fire from superior forces and being unable to move was destroyed.” I figured that those soldiers were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe it was bad luck, maybe it was incompetence. But it does not seem that there was any out-of-ordinary bravery. Be it so, but the sacrifice of those soldiers is not forgotten. I guess that the Romanian army also had numerous similar incidents. I wonder how many similar plaques are put up for the Romanian soldiers fallen in Romania (not elsewhere).

QUOTE

My grandfather lost also two cousins on the East Front... He never knew what happened to them... They were MIA (missing in action).

QUOTE

One of my grandmother's brothers, Gheorghe Teodorescu,  is MIA at Stalingrad.

I am very sorry to hear that. Did you or anyone in your families ever try to find out what has happened to them? Personally I have been very lucky to have both my grandfathers alive and well after the war. I therefore have been spared the tragedy of a war loss in the family. Later I came to realise very well what hides behind the acronym “MIA”: the uncertainty, the waiting, the endless and most of the time pointless hope. My wife’s grandmother has waited for her husband her whole life. “Maybe he will be back tomorrow.” “People have come back from prison camps many years after.” “His own brother came back that may years after the war. Why not him?” And so on for more than 40 years. More than he lived. More than they have been together.

Hundreds of thousands of Romanians lay in the huge Russian steppe, but most of the people seem not to care about them. My father once told me the story of an American bomber fallen in the fields close to his childhood house. The pilot(s) did not manage to bail out and came down with the plane. The local priest buried them even though there was not more than a handful of smashed tissue and bones left. After the armistice a group of American officers came with an interpreter and searched for them. They took the personal belongings of the pilots (probably the dog-tags) that were kept by the priest and some earth from their improvised graves. Those pilots were MIA up to that date, but then they were found. And painful as it may have been for their families, they were spared the uncertainty.

So, for personal reasons I raise again the question: Does anyone know more about the 37th Infantry Regiment and its officers?

Are there by any chance records of the Romanian prisoners in Russia? The Romanian monument that was recently raised in Kazakhstan suggests that the answer to this question may be yes.

Carol I

[Carol I]

Please do not consider this thread only as the quest for my wife's grandfather. I appreciated the stories posted by johnny_bi and dragos. I think that writing the stories of those who did not make it home will be our small homage to their sacrifice.

At the same time, the quests for your missing relatives will be equally welcomed on this thread.

Carol I