Tiraspol, May, 21. /Novosti Pridnestrovya/. Today in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pridnestrovie, they received a delegation of the German People’s Union for the care of military burials, led by the head of the Exhumation Department in the city of Kassel, Thomas Schock. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the PMR, Vitaly Ignatiev, as well as invited representatives of the Presidential Administration, the Supreme Council, law enforcement agencies and the State Service for Culture and Historical Heritage discussed with their German colleagues the transfer of the remains of German soldiers found in Tiraspol.
Recall that in the summer of 2018 in Tiraspol, during the construction of the city morgue building in the territory of the Republican Clinical Hospital, 15 German soldiers were found buried in the winter of 1943-1944. According to the searchers, it is possible that there are other graves in the hospital. Here, during the German-Romanian occupation, there was a military hospital. In total, up to a thousand dead Wehrmacht soldiers can rest in Pridnestrovie.
“Restoration of historical memory is our common task. We informed the German side of the legislation regulating the procedure for the reburial of the remains of foreign servicemen on the territory of the republic and their transportation across the State border of Pridnestrovie. It is complex and resolve all the questions that arise. They also spoke about the prospect of exploration activities in the territory of the republic, because there are still very many military burial grounds to be found,” Vitaly Ignatiev noted.
According to Vitaly Ignatiev, the interaction of Pridnestrovie with the People’s Union of Germany, including on military burials, has been around for about three years. The Foreign Minister expressed hope that the current meeting with German colleagues would give a practical impetus to such work.
“You have done a very important job, and we would like to continue it. We learned that there were German concentration camps in the territory of Pridnestrovie where Soviet prisoners of war were kept. A request was received from the Pridnestrovian side that we look in our archives about the data of these prisoners of war and, if possible, transfer them. This whole job will take quite a while. A number of technical issues still need to be resolved,” Thomas Shock emphasized in his turn.
This is the first visit of a German public man to Pridnestrovie, but not the last one. Representatives of the Popular Union of Germany plan to return to Tiraspol soon. Then, as expected, Pridnestrovian specialists will visit Germany with a reciprocal visit.
The German humanitarian public organization People's Union of Germany for the Care of War Burials was founded in 1919. Its task is to create and care for the graves of German soldiers outside of Germany, as well as collecting data on German military burials abroad. The union currently operates in more than 100 countries in Europe and North Africa.
