Remove the Monuments ?
RIA Novosti reports about the ongoing discussions between Russia and Estonia over monuments commemorating fallen Soviet soldiers on Estonia’s territory.
RIA Novosti writes:
KHANTY-MANSIISK, March 23 - Relations between Russia and Estonia could be seriously damaged by the removal of a monument to Soviet soldiers in Tallinn, the Russian foreign minister said Friday.
The six-foot high “Bronze Soldier” and other Soviet-era memorials have in recent years become rallying points for ethnic Russians, and clashes with Estonian nationalists near the bronze monument prompted the Estonian authorities to press for monuments “dividing society” to be removed.
“These actions will seriously harm Russian-Estonian relations,” Sergei Lavrov told a news conference. “We would like to avoid it, but we believe it is necessary that organizations where Estonia is a member, including the EU, NATO and OSCE, must voice their protest against such steps.”
Russia has long accused Tallinn of encouraging Nazism and discrimination against ethnic Russians, and even prompted debate on possible sanctions against Estonia.
But Estonia’s commission on wartime burials recommended March 13 removing the monument, which is part of a Soviet-era memorial, from central Tallinn to a “quieter” military cemetery, and Prime Minister Andrus Ansip announced yesterday the start of the preparation for the removal.
Some 50,000 Soviet troops perished in Estonia in 1944 when Russia liberated it from Nazi Germans and regained control of the republic, which many Estonians call Soviet occupation. The bodies are buried in 450 cemeteries and memorials across the country.
In Germany people fail to understand the fuzz that is there about the monuments for the fallen Soviet soldiers in Estonia. There are plenty of monuments on Germany’s soil commemorating the soldiers of the Red Army who lost their lives “on the road to Berlin” and during the extensive fighting that took place on German soil in the final days of World War 2.
A continuous and friendly relationship exists beween the “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.” , a German NGO taking care of German wargraves from the Arctic to the deserts of Northern Africa and from Normandy to Siberia, and the Russian authorities. Both sides take care that German wargraves are maintained and respected in Russia.
On the other hand German authorities take care of Russian / Soviet graves located on German territory. Germany contributes to the maintenance of Russian / Soviet memorials on German soil.
But not only German officials and NGOs are taking care of Russian / Soviet war graves, individual Germans do so on a voluntary and “unoffical” basis as well.
In Düsseldorf, my hometown, exists a tiny memorial commemorating Soviet POWs who died in captivity in a nearby hospital. These Soviet POWs had been forced to work in Nazi Germany’s armament industry and had deceased from various diseases and malnutrition, as well as from the terrible working conditions they had to stand.
Although living in Düsseldorf for some 18 years now I just recently learnt about this tiny memorial and decided to go and see it. It is a hewn rock and its inscription mentions, in Russian as well as in German, the number and the nationality of those it commemorates.
While walking around this memorial I noticed an elderly lady who removed moss and foliage from it, carefully cleaning it with a handbrush. While doing this she apparently talked to the memorial as if it were a living individual. I couldn’t help but watch her doing this for quite some time.
When she packed her bag and got prepared to leave the site I addressed her and told her how much it touched me to see her working there.
Well, she said, my older brother, who was my dearest, perished in the course of the battle at Kursk / Russia in August 1943.
For decades I didn’t know where he was buried and whether he had received a decent burial and rests in a worthy grave or not.
Via the “Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e.V.” I finally learnt that he is buried in a small village near Kursk and that his grave is maintained and looked after by the local population. I feel like returning this kindness by looking after this memorial here. It’s like rendering a service to my brother.
Vilhelm Konnander of “Vilhelm Konnander’s Weblog” has dedicated an entry on his blog to the bizarre situation in Estonia in February this year already. It is called “Estonia: Battle by Bronze Proxy” and is a read I would like to suggest to you.
Germany considers the fallen soldiers, burried in her soil, being her dead. Regardless which country they came from. In my oppinion the dignity and honour of a country or nation can be judged by the way it treats the dead.
How about you Estonia ? The fallen Soviet soldiers buried in your soil have long become your dead already.
Honour and respect them the way you want to be respected yourself.
