Digging the ground......

[dragos]

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.

[Elisa]

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

[Elisa]

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)

[Victor]

QUOTE

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.   V

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.

[Von Maybach]

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...)... ).

[C-2]

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.

[RHaught]

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?

[Dr_V]

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.

[Von Maybach]

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.

[Von Maybach]

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.

[Dan Po]

[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: .

[Dan Po]

QUOTE

,... 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.

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 ?

[Victor]

There was even a Mausoleum near Odessa. But I doubt it still exists today.

[mabadesc]

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.

[cnflyboy2000]

QUOTE

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

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.