German memorial cemetery. Memorial complex "Peace Park" in Rzhev
And here are the reviews from the Internet:
Eugene. I propose to allocate a larger piece of land for the burial of the German invaders, but beyond the Urals, away from people. After all, they really wanted to get there. Let them rest there now. The dukhovshchin people need to hold a referendum on the suitability of their leadership, because by its actions it generates enmity. We cannot protect our native cemeteries from vandalism, but what will happen when German appears? Are local officials preparing jobs for themselves as guards for a German burial? The Germans will pay well, in euros. Is it really not clear that the third world war is going on? War for our souls, the souls of our children, grandchildren. To whom God has given conscience, oppose the burial of the German invaders in the Smolensk region. "
Xardkvanon. This is how we are losing this third world war! Russians have always been famous for their generosity. But, apparently, they were crushed by the soul in this very war for minds and souls. We have not been able to bury our soldiers for almost seven decades, and for this we will not allow the fascist scum to be buried ... It is unlikely that any of the Smolyans will carry flowers to the German graves. It is unlikely that the Germans - the descendants of the victims - will be drawn to these graves. And they will stretch, will they come to praise them? It's a shame! And the graves of German soldiers will be a vivid reminder of what awaits the conquerors who have come to our land, whoever they are. And it is a pity that we did not preserve the graves of the Germans, who every century (!), And in the twentieth so twice, came to trample our land. That would be a good warning to them!
Tatiana Rassokhina (Rozhkova). I am a native of Duhovschina, currently I live in Latvia. I am outraged by the actions of the spiritual authorities and suggest that they resign. Let the German side take the remains of their soldiers, bury them in Germany, and let their relatives visit and mourn there, and not here, in the long-suffering Dukhovshchina. My mother was hijacked by the Germans to Germany from the village of Ilyino, although she had two small children, miraculously my mother managed to escape. Mom's little son was blown up by a shell, and her brother died in the first days of the war. My father fought all the years, was wounded, had awards. Nobody called the German invaders to Russia, they came to kill our people, burn and destroy our cities and villages. NO to the cemetery of the fascists in my homeland! I vote against!
Eve. We Russians are painfully discussing this problem, which should not be. First, when deciding to create new burials of fascist soldiers, our government did not bother to get acquainted with the documents adopted in the USSR back in 1942. Russia is the legal successor of the USSR, therefore, it should know its fundamental documents and use them, since they have not been canceled. Those documents read: "... Places for the burial of enemy soldiers and officers are set aside away from settlements, highways and burial places of commanders and soldiers of the Red Army and the civilian population." In the Dukhovshchinsky district, the decision to allocate land for a German cemetery violates all norms. What will I tell my children and grandchildren? That murderers, thieves, rapists who tried to conquer our people are buried here? The Golden Calf took possession of the souls of those who want to perpetuate the memory of the Nazis against the will of the majority. I think those who will build these memorials will have decent money sticking to their little hands, since the construction of one grave costs from 2 to 5 thousand euros. Vileness emanates from this.
Boris. Of course, all soldiers, regardless of their nationality, must be buried, as is customary for all people. Nobody called Soviet soldiers to Finland and Poland either, and nobody discusses it or kicks the remains. In those days, many were not very humane, even to their compatriots. It is necessary to bury and allow relatives to visit the graves of their grandfathers
The decision to build a foreign military burial site of the Second World War in the area of \u200b\u200bthe Northern Pier was reached at negotiations between the German People's Union and the Baltiysk administration in 1994. This was provided for by a bilateral agreement (1992), which laid a solid foundation for cooperation for peace between Russia and Germany.
The choice of the place was determined by history itself. It was here that about eight thousand people were buried: soldiers of the German army, residents of East Prussia, prisoners of war of the countries of the anti-Hitler coalition, as well as those who were forcibly brought here from all over Europe. These are citizens of twenty-four nationalities: Austrians, Poles, French, Russians, Czechs, Hungarians, Dutch, Italians, Romanians, Ukrainians, Swiss, Lithuanians, Yugoslavs, Spaniards, Danes, Chileans, Americans and others.
Never before in the history of Pillau has its harbor seen so many civilians as in the winter of 1945. All roads leading to them were filled with cars and carts. In the puddles of snow lay mountains of abandoned luggage, all sorts of household utensils, chests with clothes and linen, boxes, furniture, whole mountains of suitcases. For those who could not get on the ships, there was only one last way: to cross the frozen Frische-Huff to a narrow strip of land, along which it was still possible to get to Danzig (now - Gdansk, Poland). An endless stream of people rushed to the opposite shore of the bay. Often people, carts and horses fell into craters covered only with a thin crust of ice and therefore became invisible. People tried to hide where the fiercest battles took place, and died from air raids and artillery shelling. In the second half of January 31, a stretcher covered with white sheets was removed from the minesweepers who approached the pier. These were the passengers and crew members of the "Wilhelm Gustloff" liner who died as a result of the attack of the "S-13" submarine under the command of Captain 3rd Rank A.I. Marinesco. Their mass grave is located on the right at the entrance.
From the German side, Ernst Giesenbracht, a native of Palmniken (now the village of Yantarny), who lived and studied in Pillau, took part in the preparation of the project. His Russian colleague, a graduate of the architectural department of the Ashgabat Polytechnic Institute V.G. Klivensky, for many years erected public and administrative buildings in Turkmenistan, Moldova and Russia.
Three crosses with a total weight of two tons are installed in the center of the memorial as symbols of various Christian teachings. The largest of them is a nine-meter Orthodox cross, the height of the other two reaches seven meters. They were made of steel plates by the shipbuilding engineer V.M. Kulishkin and installed on a sixty-ton reinforced concrete foundation. Next to the crosses, there are two-meter slabs of Kazakh granite with the names of more than four thousand German soldiers and officers who died on the Zemland peninsula at the very end of the war.
The ceremony of consecration of the memorial on August 20, 2000 was attended by the ambassador of Germany to Russia von Studnitz, representatives of German communities, residents of Baltiysk and war veterans. Lutheran and Orthodox memorial services were also held here.
Every year in the summer months in Baltiysk there is an international youth camp of the German People's Union, which unites students and schoolchildren from Germany and Russia. Their joint work and rest serve a noble goal - reconciliation and the search for mutual understanding between peoples and people.
German memorial cemetery in Baltiysk - description, coordinates, photos, reviews and the ability to find this place in the Kaliningrad region (Russia). Find out where it is, how to get there, see what's interesting around. Check out other places on our interactive map for more information. Get to know the world better.
Only 3 editions, the last one was made by Shicko from Tula 7 years ago
The memorial complex "Peace Park" in Rzhev
In Rzhev, on the Ostashkovskoye highway, there is a huge memorial complex, which previously consisted of three parts: the Memorial Cemetery of Soviet soldiers, the German military cemetery, and the memorial to Kazakh soldiers. Recently, a memorial in memory of the Jews killed during the war was opened here.
"Soldiers' graves are the world's greatest preachers."
Perhaps it is here that these words of Albert Schweitzer - theologian, philosopher, humanist, musician and doctor, Nobel Peace Prize laureate - are perceived more clearly.
In the period from January 1942 to March 1943, during large-scale military operations on the Rzhev-Vyazemsky bridgehead, Soviet troops lost almost one and a half million people, and this figure is not final. The fighting in these parts - Rzhevsky, Oleninsky, Belsky districts - did not stop for a minute. On the part of the rival, the losses reached almost a million dead soldiers. In order to keep the enemy, combat units from all over the Soviet Union were drawn here - the Red Army here was literally international.
1. Memorial to the Kazakh soldiers
Perhaps you need to start the story from this part of the complex, since it is now at the head. The memorial to the Kazakh soldiers of the 100th and 101st separate rifle brigades who died during the Great Patriotic War at the Rzhevsky bridgehead was opened in 2010. Especially for the opening of the complex, a capsule with the native land of the dead soldiers was brought here. The memorial consists of three parts: flower beds, walls with engraving and a commemorative inscription, a tombstone, which lists the names of the fallen soldiers.
In November 1942, both brigades took part in the hostilities in Operation Mars together with the troops of the 4th Shock Army of the Kalinin Front. In the first weeks, they lost up to 80% of their fighters: in the 100th brigade more than a thousand people, in the 101st brigade - 1,300 people.
2. Memorial cemetery of Soviet soldiers
Next in the complex is the cemetery, where the fallen Red Army soldiers are buried. Behind the gates of the cemetery there are fraternal graves, in which the remains of more than 10 thousand people are buried, a monument to soldiers has been erected, and a memorial wall has been erected. In 2002, a chapel was built and consecrated here, which was named after the Russian prince Alexander Nevsky.
3. German military cemetery
Perhaps the most interesting part of the complex in terms of its architectural design. The cemetery was opened on September 28, 2002, despite various protests, and a mournful Catholic cross was erected on the Rzhev land. However, disputes and speeches about the inadmissibility of finding a cemetery for German soldiers on Tver land did not subside after its opening, and even now there are ardent opponents of this decision.
The German cemetery consists of several parts: mass graves of soldiers, an alley of stones on which the names of the dead are carved, ending with a mournful cross, a memorial in memory of the German prisoners of war who died in the Tver land, a mournful stone in memory of the dead Hungarian prisoners of war, and a copy of the German cemetery opens. sculptures "Grieving Parents". Here, perhaps, I will note that the original of the monument by the German sculptor Kete Kollwitz is located at the soldier's cemetery in the Belgian Vladslo.
3. Monument in memory of the Jews - prisoners of the ghetto.
On September 24, 2015, another object was opened here, which only strengthened the meaning of the name of the memorial complex. Peace Park has been replenished with a monument erected to Jews destroyed by the Nazi invaders and their accomplices in June 1942 on the Rzhev land.
A two-meter memorial sign made of black stone and topped with a six-pointed star is installed directly opposite the entrance to the territory of the cemetery of the fallen Red Army soldiers. It was erected by the Jewish community of the Tver region with the support of the regional government, the Restore Dignity project of the Russian Jewish Congress and the Holocaust Center, the administration and residents of Rzhev.
By the way, in addition to this, next to the memorial complex there is the Walk of Glory and a memorial stone to the missing soldiers.
A twenty-minute drive from Kursk - the city of Military Glory - not far from the village of Besedino, there is an impressive memorial complex in memory of German servicemen who died during the Great Patriotic War on Soviet soil. About 40 thousand names are engraved on the plates of the Kursk-Besedino memorial cemetery, which was officially opened 5 years ago - in 2009 with active cooperation of the Russian and German sides.
In front of the entrance to the military cemetery, which is always open, there is a plate with the following lines:
Soldiers' graves are the great preachers of peace (Albert Schweitzer, Nobel laureate).
This war cemetery for soldiers killed in World War II was built by the German People's Union for the Care of War Graves between 2006-2009. on behalf of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany. The National Union carries out the maintenance and care of the cemetery at the expense of donations and contributions. Helping care and building bridges of interaction are young people from all over Europe who participate in international youth camps.
With the entry into force of the German-Russian Agreement on War Burials in 1992, a legal basis was created so that a large prefabricated cemetery of German soldiers who died in battles on the Kursk Bulge could be built on these 4.5 hectares near Kursk. The Russian government has donated the plot to the disposal of the Federal Republic of Germany.
In 2005, the transfer of the remains of German servicemen to the Kursk-Besedino cemetery began. Before the cemetery was illuminated in 2009, the People's Union reburied over 24,000 remains of servicemen from hundreds of graves in the Oryol, Kursk, Tula, Voronezh, Lipetsk and Belgorod regions. Upon completion of the work, about 40,000 dead German servicemen will find peace and last refuge here.
This is one of the largest burials of German soldiers in the Central Federal District, which received the status of a memorial complex. At one time, speaking at the opening of the German cemetery near Kursk, the then German ambassador to Russia Walter Jurgen Schmid said that he teaches peoples not to repeat bloody mistakes and find new contacts in order to develop full-fledged cooperation. The German delegation called the opening of the Kursk-Besedino memorial an important milestone in cooperation between Germany and the Russian Federation.
The German People's Union (NSG) for the care of the burials of military personnel has been working abroad on behalf of the German government for exactly 60 years. The organization itself, whose main motto is "Reconciliation over the graves is work for peace" is one of the oldest public organizations of this type in Europe. Since 1919, the NSG has been dealing with the issues of military burials and the protection of memorial complexes. The permanent employees of the NSG, together with volunteers, take care of, among other things, the graves of Soviet soldiers resting in Germany.
The head of the public organization declares that the soldiers of the Second World War and all the victims of that war have the right to rest and should not be consigned to oblivion.
Assistance in the opening of the memorial cemetery and the reburial of the remains of German soldiers there was provided not only by the authorities of Germany and Russia, but also by the relatives of the German soldiers who died during the Great Patriotic War.
German citizen Eva Leer, the granddaughter of Private Robert Ebers, who died on July 27, 1943 in the battles at the Kursk Bulge, says:
According to my grandmother's stories, my grandfather was sent to the Eastern Front in May 1943. She was in position in those days. On July 26, my mother was born, and a few days later the family learned that Robert (grandfather) had died. He was under twenty. For a long time we had no opportunity to find the burial place of the deceased grandfather. And only thanks to the joint initiatives of Russian and German public organizations, government structures, we managed to learn about the burial place of Robert Ebers and visit his grave near Kursk. I was not able to attend the opening of the memorial, but for the second year in a row my son and I have come here as part of the People's Union group to take part in the care of the memorial together with Russian volunteers. As you can imagine, I have never seen my grandfather, and therefore the opportunity to care for the mass grave in which he rests is especially significant for me. It is a pity that mom and grandmother did not live up to this moment.
The German side reports that since the official opening of the memorial military cemetery near Kursk, more than a thousand relatives of the victims have already visited it.
A number of countries that call themselves embarked on the path of democracy, but at the same time are engaged in an active struggle with the memory of the past, should pay attention to the positive and more than democratic experience of cooperation between Russia and Germany in relation to common history.
