WW2 cemetry in Moldova (republic)

I just saw on tv a reportage about a ww2 cemetry in the republic of Moldova,that was reopened after the soviets transformed it into a pig farm.
Most of he people present at the eveniment wre priests.
Two Mihai the Brave veteransa,who wore their uniform with pride and joy.Oposit to the current oficers.
The former king Mihai,who seemed to be very bored. At his back the price of the princes radu duda,of hohenzolern,habsburg,tudor,lancaster major general and so on.
Standing as a shadow behind the king,but succesfuly,mooving from left to right in hight speed,in order to be seen by the camers.
Most of all I'm sorry for hose oung men who died for noting.
I also so the ministery of defence,who looks like a mayer from a tiny village somewhere in the mountains.

[edited by admin]

The event was already mentioned in the thread on ww1 and ww2 romanian war cemeteries. It is about the cemetery at Ţiganca.

It missed my coment about it....

This article is especially for C-2 (from Adevarul daily):
http://www.adevarulonline.ro/2006-09-01/Pr...lor_196842.html

And a photo of his buddy (from the same source):




Gen. Dénes

This post has been edited by Dénes on September 01, 2006 03:03 am

As I previously wrote in another topic here, and previously in a topic in www.feldgrau.net:
The most usual fate for the wood crosses of the German and Romanian graves in Russia was firewood. In Russia is cold a half of year...

I learned from these websites that a new "small bussiness" is booming in Russia after 1990: plundering these graves, for medals and other personal objects.
This raises the question: were the soldiers burried with their medals, or the medals were sent to their families? I am not talking about everyday reality, when even the comrades may take the medals from the fallen. I am talking about bureaucracy - what was supposed to happen.

This post has been edited by Florin on September 01, 2006 08:36 pm

Hallo C-2

I suspect many bodies were buried without full military honours depending on the time and conditions of the area of battle, traditionaly soldiers would get a coffin and a respectful service with priest if time allowed, where large amounts of casualties were encountered mass burials with the soldier rolled into a poncho or rain cape in a large trench would be the norm.

And a very quick burial in the heat of summer, I am sure the main item retrieved from the dead would have been one half of the identification disc, which would then be held at the company headquarters before the information on the dead soldier would be transmitted higher up the chain of command.

Stripping the remains of his awards, i.e. Iron Cross, Wound badge. Frontfighter badge, etc... and documenting which belonged to whom, would probably take up a lot of time and resources for transmission to the deceased family,

I will check around the net and see if there were any specific German units assigned to the task similar to the Graves Registration Units of the US Army.

Of course if the bodies that were in an area that became captured Russian, British, US, German etc..then I imagine many articles were liberated from the corpse before burial, including personel possesions such as letters and pictures, letters were taken for inteligence gathering as well as any item that could identify a particular enemy unit.

Plundering or robbing the dead or even POW was strictly against regulations but you can be sure it happened on all fronts and done by all sides, but, there were strict penalties if caught though, and little sympathy for the guilty.

Some soldiers considered it a "right" to take items from a dead and vanquished foe and this trend has always flourished no matter in what time period even to the present day.

Of course things done by a soldier, in a time of war bear little relation to somebody desecrating a grave today at a WW2 battle site for items, that just a criminal act with the idea of making money, thankfully items found so, will probably be in very poor condition.

Kevin in Deva