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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Old cemetery. Where to start ?


joskaa

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5 minutes ago, JWK said:

Well, we now got the graves of 4 German soldiers:

Willi Knappert . Grenadier Regiment 2  .  from Zernin/Kölberg-Körlin . died 26.05.1915

Ernst Ribbeck . RIR18 . from Bahn/Stettin . died 26.05.1915

Hermann Büdde . RIR 3 . from Quakenbrück/Bersenbrück

Wilhelm Preiss . Leib-Dragoner-Regiment 20 . from Grünwettersbach/Durlach . Died 26.5.1915

 

and one who is possibly buried there, as he died in the same Reserve-Feldlazarett 9:

Hans Boström, Husaren-Regiment Königin Wilhelmina der Niederlande (Hannoversches) Nr. 15 . from Kussen/Ratzeburg . died 26.06.1915

 

Let's hope their descendants/relatives will be directed here when they type in their name into Google!

 

There have been a few topics on Lithuanian cemeteries before.

e.g. this one from 2014, with a picture of Biržuvėnai cemetery (not too far from Zarenai, I believe)

 

Anyway: @joskaa    can I ask you for some more photos of gravestones, if possible?

Gives us a reason to puzzle away the hours in these lock-down days.

Yeah, Birzuvenai is just about 15 km from me... 

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@joskaa Yes please send some more photos.

I think the last sentence in this quote (the underscore is mine) from the VDK Website regarding the cemetery at Silenai says a lot. Are the WW1 graves in the east for some reason less important? there always seems to be funding for those in France and Belgium.
 

„Der Friedhof befindet sich neben dem Zivilfriedhof des Dorfes und umfasst ein Territorium von etwa 2000 Quadratmeter. Das Gelände ist mit einem Wall eingefasst. Grabkreuze gibt es nicht mehr, sie wurden im Laufe der Jahre entfernt. Von dem ehemals vorhandenen Denkmal sind nur noch Bruchstücke erhalten geblieben. Jetzt ist das Territorium mit Gras und Büschen bewachsen. Aus litauischen Archivunterlagen geht hervor, dass in Silenai etwa 300 Kriegstote beigesetzt wurden. Der Volksbund konnte hier noch nicht tätig werden. Für die Arbeit auf Friedhöfen des Ersten Weltkrieges stehen nur sehr begrenzte finanzielle Mittel zur Verfügung.“

 

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There's also this earlier thread, from 2009, in which @CROONAERT  wrote :

"... As you know, they're [= the Volksbund] only a fraction of the way into their work in the east and, like the US, they're working their way backwards (ie concentrating on WW2 first in the case of the Germans)...."

 

I know the Volksbund are concentrating a lot of their work on e.g. East of Berlin, where massive battles took place at the end of WW2, and mány German soldiers were buried in fieldgraves. There were some véry interesting documentaries on German TV about that. Probably accessible via Youtube.

 

And there are só many German cemeteries/fieldgraves/lost graves on the Eastern front, both from WW1 ànd WW2, being, as I write, pillaged by relic-hunters....

Where dò you begin with only limited resources?

 

As I understand they're only partly subsidised by the German government (30% ?), and have to rely for the remaining 70% solely on individual donations.

 

 

Edited by JWK
Edited the part about the funding of Volksbund
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