Romanian WWII monument in Kazakhstan

[Carol I]

During the September 2003 visit of the Romanian president in Kazakhstan, a memorial monument was unveiled in the Spassk village in the memory of the Romanian WWII prisoners who had been buried in the Karlag memorial cemetery. According to a photo I have seen on the net, the monument is a black marble block with a cross and “IN MEMORIAM” on top followed by a text in Romanian. In the lower part of the monument a text in Russian is engraved (probably the same as above).

The monument was raised by the Romanian ambassador to Kazakhstan, Vasile Soare. With the help of the local authorities he discovered that 6740 Romanian captives were kept in the Karaganda region prisons between 1941 and 1946. 827 of them were buried in the Spassk cemetery.

Do you have any more details about this monument and/or the Romanian soldiers for whom it was raised?

Are there any other similar monuments in other places on the Eastern Front where the Romanian army has been engaged in combat or at least where the Romanian prisoners were kept?

[Der Maresal]

There is a Romanian cemetary at Stalingrad for those who fell in the battle- I have seen an image of it, tough i don't remember where.

Perhaps the other's can tell us more about it.

[Victor]

Romanian cemeteries in the former USSR

Ukraine
Chernowitz/Cernauiti: 454 KIA
Bolgrad/Cetatea Alba: 111 KIA
Crimea: 1,211 KIA and 453 died in detention
Donetsk: 711 died in detention
Ismail: 96 KIA and 2 died in detention
Lugansk: 3,587 died in detention
Melitopol: 1,988 KIA
Nikolaev: 330 died in detention
Odessa: 2,302 KIA and 348 died in detention
Ovidopol: 11,416 KIA
Zaporozhye: 930 died in detention
Other places: 1,230 KIA and 490 died in detention

Total: 18,814 KIA and 6,851 died in detention

Russian Federation
Astakhan: 1,171 died in detention
Don Area: 1,495 KIA and 4,298 died in detention
Ivanovo: 3,675 died in detention
Nizhegorod: 593 died in detention
Rostov: 155 KIA and 671 died in detention
Saratov: 579 died in detention
Sverdlovsk: 1,358 died in detention
Tambov: 2,549 died in detention
Volgograd: 462 died in detention
Other places: 168 KIA and 226 died in detention

Total: 1,818 KIA and 15,582 died in detention

Republic of Moldavia
Balti: 308
Cania: 938
Chisinau: 232
Micaluteni: 238
Orhei: 239
Sculeni: 109
Soroca: 455
Tighina: 518
Tiganca: 1,161
Varzareti: 162
Other places: 592

Total: 4,952 KIA (the whereabouts of the rest of the soldiers that died in Bessarabia are not all known unfortunately)

Kazahstan
Total: 943 died in detention

Georgia
Total: 303 died in detention

Belarus
Total: 188 died in detention

Armenia
Total: 175 died in detention

Azerbaidjan
Total: 162 died in detention

Estonia
Total: 12 died in detention

Uzbekistan
Total: 10 died in detention

Lithuania
Total: 2 died in detention

Latvia
Total: 1 died in detention

Grand total: 25,584 KIA and 24,229 died in detention=49,813

Considering the Romanian army had over 71,000 KIAs and about 200,000 MIAs about nothing was known in 1946-47 (true, many came back in the late 40s and early 50s), the figure is unfortunately too small.

[Carol I]

Thanks Victor for the information. What was the source you have used to obtain these numbers?

According to http://www.presamil.ro/OM/2003/36/pag%2012.htm gen. Teodor Halic from the National Association of War Veterans gives quite different numbers for the POWs in the former Soviet Union: 187370 POWs, out of which 54635 died in detention and the remaining 132735 were eventually freed.

Do you think the 187370 POWs mentioned by Halic are in fact (most of) the 200000 MIA mentioned in your source?

[Victor]

The 200,000 was for MIAs. That does not necessarily mean POW.

[Carol I]

QUOTE

The 200,000 was for MIAs. That does not necessarily mean POW.

I agree and this is why I put the "most of" in there.

Anyhow, if the numbers are correct there are almost 13000 MIAs that are unaccounted for (between 200000 and 187370), i.e. about 6%. Is this figure realistic? What is the percentage of MIAs for other armies that do not eventually appear as POWs?

[Victor]

The 200,000 MIAs in September 1947 is obtained by subtracting the 90,000 that had returned from Russia until then from the official figure of 309,533 MIAs.

So that means that leaves 122,163 of the MIA were actually killed in battle and (I suspect many of them) en route to the POW camps, when obviously no one counted the soldiers killed because they couldn't keep up with the column or died in the overcrowded train cars.

[Carol I]

122163 out of 309533 MIA represents more than 39%. The initial questions remain. Is the 39% figure realistic for the MIAs unaccounted for by the Romanian army on the Eastern front? What is the WWII percentage of MIAs that do not eventually appear as POWs for other armies (e.g., German, Russian)?

[Carol I]

The monument in Kazakhstan

Source: ONCE