My father always spoke well of soldiers in German uniform who were citizens of Belarus.
Holland was invaded by Germany on Sunday morning May 10, 1940. My dad was stationed at the famous Moerdijk bridge which was to be blown as soon as the Germans invaded Holland from the south. Dutch armed forces weren’t equipped to stop the German blitz and when the Luftwaffe bombed the city of Rotterdam to force a quick capitulation, the war ended in just a few days with only pockets of resistance in a few weeks.
My dad was briefly taken prisoner by the Germans but released within a few days so he managed to return home. His best buddy was less fortunate as he was killed by a German sniper on that fateful Sunday morning while standing just a few feet aside from my dad.
Fascism and the Nazis destroyed most of Europe and many millions died, were wounded or lives completely uprooted. Under political leadership of President Roosevelt, PM Churchill and military commanders General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery Dutch territory was liberated between September 1944 and May 5, 1945. The densely populated western provinces of Holland from Amsterdam-Leiden-The Hague-Rotterdam had to suffer during a horrible Hunger Winter of 1944-45 still under German occupation. To survive the Dutch prepared tulip bulbs for meals … thousands would starve during that harsh winter.
The genocide of the Jews across all of Europe would only become clear after the war when allied forces conquered German occupied territories and when they met the people in concentration camps, more near death than alive. The Soviet army, the Red Army had suffered the most and were instrumental in the defeat of the German forces on the Eastern front. The population of the Soviet Union lost over 29 million at the hands of German forces. Many inhabitants of occupied territories were called to serve in the Waffen SS and were send to the Eastern front. During the commemoration of Fallen Soldiers each year in The Netherlands, I was aware of large fields of graves all across the country, especially Margraten in the southern province of Limburg. The allied forces that liberated Holland came mainly from Canada, Poland and the Yanks of course. I didn’t fully realize there were fallen soldiers from the Soviet Union and its satellite states also buried here.
I find it offensive that the western powers in Europe and spurned on by the United States, leaders have refused to honor the Fallen Soldiers and the sacrifices of the Soviet people during the 70 years commemoration of Liberty in Europe. The scourge of fascism isn’t gone in Europe, especially in “Old-Europe” of the former states under influence and occupation by the Red Army. Just google homophobia in Europe and those states will show-up: Baltic states, parts of Poland, Ukraine and Hungary. The inhabitants who found along with the German forces as they swept towards the Soviet border, are today honored as heroes of their respective nations. These soldiers served with the German Nazi forces which they joined in razzias or pogroms under the Jewish population, executing thousands upon thousands in East Galicia and what is now territory of the Ukraine.
The Dutch always had a good relationship with Russia from before communism, dating back centuries to czar Peter the Great. Up to the year 2014, the Dutch had a good business relationship with Russian companies and the government in Moscow. The year 2013 was a special commemoration of 500 years ties between the two states and the Russian Hermitage museum opened a small annex in Amsterdam. Western Europe and the Russian people after the fall of Communism share a common culture and many moral values. The new states like Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria were joined with the EU for political reasons but did not meet the strict conditions of human rights issues or economic and financial standards. Corruption, black market and bribery cause the EU subsidies to flow into hands of the rich or oligarchs and too little is done for businesses and jobs for its citizens. The flow of migrants to western states of the EU causes a lot of irritation and the right-wing parties seize the topic to criticize EU HQ in Brussels. Also one of the reasons Cameron in the UK envisions a referendum to keep the voters from moving to UKIP, the anti-immigration and anti-EU party.
To honor Fallen Soldiers in the Netherlands, I learned of a cemetary in Leusden and a Dutchman who tries to identify the persons buried in unmarked graves. President Putin has shown his appreciation for the work that was accomplished.
○ West’s boycott of Victory Day in Moscow is unhelpful
○ German chancellor Merkel will join Putin in the Kremlin on May 10th
Remembering the execution of 77 Soviet soldiers
The annual remembrance of the execution of 77 Soviet soldiers in 1942 will take place on April 9 at 06.30 a.m. 77 candles will be lit during the remembrance. There will also be music, prayer and silence.
People interested in joining the remembrance at this early hour are welcome at the Koedriest Monument on the Loes van Overeemlaan in Leusden. The monument is located behind Kamp Amersfoort and golf club De Hoge Kleij. Following the remembrance a simple breakfast will be served in the reception room at Kamp Amersfoort.
The execution that took place on April 9, 1942 was one of the biggest mass executions in the Netherlands during the Second World War. At the break of dawn 77 Soviet soldiers were executed just outside Kamp Amersfoort, where now the Koedriest Monument stands. These 77 men were part of a group of 101 prisoners of war from Uzbekistan, among other places, whom the Nazis saw as living propaganda material. 24 POWs died soon after arriving in Kamp Amersfoort from hunger, sickness and abuse. The remaining 77 met their death on April 9, 1942. All these men are buried as unknown Soviet soldiers on the Russian Field of Honour on Dodeweg 31 in Leusden.
Since 2013 the Foundation for the Russian Field of Honour has organised this remembrance in conjunction with the Stichting Nationaal Kamp Amersfoort, and Crematorium and Begraafplaatsen Amersfoort to remember this great, unknown tragedy.
The Georgian Rebellion on Texel
On April 6, 1945, Georgian troops serving as volunteers with the German army on the Island of Texel off the Dutch coast, stage a mutiny, killing 246 German soldiers in their sleep. The mutiny turns into a battle which eventually kills 800 Germans, 500 Georgians and 117 Texel civilians. The fighting ends only when the Canadians arrive on 20 May 45, two weeks after the end of the European war.
This Georgian Uprising on Texel becomes Europe’s final battlefield of WWII.
Georgian POWs were given the choice to either fight for the Wehrmacht or die of starvation in the POW camps. Many Georgian soldiers chose to work for the Germans, having no love whatsoever for Stalin, and joined the German garrison on Texel.
As the end of the war approached, it became clear that the Germans had lost and that Stalin would show no compassion toward Red Army soldiers who surrendered, let alone cooperated with the Germans. The Georgians decided to mutiny against the Germans and a viscous battle with many casualties erupted.
Wehrmacht’s ethnic Georgian Legion was formed in both World War I and II plus video
Family members of Georgians killed in fort Beverwijk tracked down
For over 70 years they were in the dark about the last resting place of their father and grandfather. Now the families of Georgians Anton Gviniashvili and Konstantin Skhirtladze, who were murdered in Beverwijk, finally know what happened to them in the war.
The relatives were tracked down by investigator Remco Reiding on behalf of the Foundation for the Russian Field of Honour. In recent years he has traced the relatives of four other soldiers. In 2012 a daughter of one the soldiers was the first relative to visit the execution ground.
Reiding was aided in his quest by the Georgian embassy, Natalia Totosashvili, who resides in the Netherlands, and lawyer Zaza Miladze. The relatives of the soldiers reacted emotionally to the news that their father and grandfather had been found 70 years after the war. From Georgia Miladze told us he had not wept like this for a long time.
Relatives of the Georgian soldier Shalva Zhordania were also tracked down not long ago. He died on April 19, 1944 in Zandvoort and was initially buried in Bloemendaal.
The Georgians served in the Red Army, but were taken prisoner by the Wehrmacht. To escape the awful camp conditions, they chose to serve in the German army. After being transferred to the Netherlands they sought out the Dutch resistance.
The German army had an ammunition depot in the fort on the Sint Aagtendijk in Beverwijk. On April 20, 1945, several Georgians were caught stealing hand grenades. The fifteen Georgians who remained at the fort were executed that same evening. After the war their remains were reburied at the Russian Field of Honour in Leusden.
When Time Completely Stopped for a Fallen Soldier’s Wife | Moscow Times |
When Pyotr Koval was drafted into the Red Army and sent to the front in 1941, he and his wife, Galina, stopped their watches to show that time stopped for them when they were apart.
They never wound up the watches again. Galina’s was laid in her casket when she died in 1990 — 10 years before Dutch journalist Remco Reiding arrived in her hometown of Alushta, now in Ukraine, to tell her how and where her husband died.
Reiding arrived too late for the Kovals, but there are many other families living across the former Soviet Union waiting to learn the fate of their husbands and fathers. Several hundred of those fallen Soviet soldiers rest in the Russian Field of Honor cemetery near the Dutch town of Amersfoort, and Reiding has spent years tracking their relatives to give them closure.
More than 3.7 million Soviet soldiers who died in World War II are buried outside present-day Russian territory, according to Russian Defense Ministry data. Of them, only about 740,000, or less than 20 percent, have been identified.
