Request for help from Germany

[houseofbean]

I just called the primaria in Cavadinesti.

I told the lady to have a little mercy as I don't speak the language too well. I asked her if there are any German soldiers, from WW2, buried in Cavadinesti cemetery. She told me no. So I asked if it was possible that Germans were buried in or near the cemetery. She said there is no evidence of them being buried. She said something about people from Bucharest being buried there, but that was it.

I think I will have a friend call again and ask for the local priest's number. (The link above on this page doesn't work). He might be more familiar with the cemetery.

The map I have shows the River Pruth (or Prut) to be a distance from Cavadinesti. I guess it's possible that he was buried where he died near the river, and they just said he was buried at the cemetery in Cavadinesti 'for the sake of the family'. I don't know. I probably will never know, but I'm the curious type!

So even if a sign was made for German soldiers there, it might have been destroyed by Russian soldiers. I don't know.

The only people that would know are the German soldiers who buried him...Unless they were all killed, and were buried by Romanians.

All I can think to do know is just take pictures of the town and cemetery for Herr Janssen.

:-(

But thank you to everyone who has given advice!

[houseofbean]

Hello everyone

Dragos wrote me and said, he was going to Cavadinesti on Tuesday. I told him that I would be happy to come too. So I will meet him in Focsani, and we will go from there.

Even if we can't find a marked grave, I hope that the pictures we take can help the Janssen family in some way.

And if I have the time and money, I would like to go down to Galati because I read about a German monument with many soldiers buried there. I am just curious and would like to see it.

I will let everyone know how things go.
Shane

[d1ragos]

Hello everyone ,
Saw that Shane hasn't post nothing yet and knowing that he'll left Romania today , I'll post instead of him the result of our visit to Cadavinesti

I have meet Shane and we went together to Cadavinesti .
We have check the cemetery there and also the cemetery in Comanesti ;there is no german military grave .
Local people - an old teacher and someone working in the church (dascal) confirmed us that in the whole area there is no german people buried.
We have found only an monument dedicated to the romanians soldiers in front of the school in Cadavinesti and an other one in the church yard in Comanesti also dedicated to the romanians soldiers .

Mr. Janßen was allready informed about the result of our research and also about the fact that we'll keep looking for any informations about his grandfather .

[Ferdinand]

i know that this is old topic but... in my grandmothers village there is a common grave at the end of the cemetery. when my mother was a child she said that in the village was a professor (ww2 veteran) that every year would take the kids from school to take care of the graves. now, there is a problem...this mass graves(german) are not anymore marked, as in this village came after the german retreat the "liberating" army raping and drinking.
according to my mother, this(cleaning the graves from grass..etc ) was happening in 50-60. also that time, when she was comming back from field(the whole school was working in the autum in agriculture) she saw that in the main steet of the village a lot of cars. militia and "securitatea" was there. a teacher from the school commited suicide. in the school attic someone found ww2 weapons, grenades...etc. a real arsenal. he was a member of the iron guard, and was nobody knew about him until someone found the weapons. he hanged himself before the militia got him.

anyway....the point is that there is a german grave 100%. don't expect the whole village knows about it. just to give you an example: i was on a battlefield, mountain front. i visited a bunker and when i got back on the road i stopped the car 200 meters from the bunker. there was an oldman with some goats. and i ask him about the bunkers. his answer?! what bunkers? there are no bunkers here.... my wife started to laugh as she thought he was jokeing.

This post has been edited by seeker on October 07, 2009 02:46 pm

[houseofbean]

Hello everyone,

I'm back in Romania to visit friends again. Yes, I have an update to an old post..

Thank you, Seeker, for your post. It is very interesting.

Dragos and I did find the cemetery. But just as he wrote, we didn't find a German grave, and the people we talked to said there wasn't one. But we looked anyway. We looked at every grave.. Many graves were in bad condition and we couldn't see any markings. I photographed the cemetery. I also photographed the land facing the east..

We even looked at another cemetery in a nearby village, but nothing..

There is a war memorial statue in Cavadinesti that we looked at. And also at the other cemetery. It was in memory of the brave Romanian soldiers with the names of many..

We were sad that we did not find the grave, but we agreed to keep looking in some way..

I left Romania several days later in 2008. But while I was at the airport in Otopeni, I checked my email. I was expecting to get an email from my sister. But, to my surprise, it was an email from the Nation Office of Heroes Memory.

I received an email from Dr. Cristian Scarlat, the director of ONCE. www.once.ro.

In the letter Dr Scarlat wrote:

..... In the village of Cavadinesti, comune Cavadinesti, was buried 61 German soldiers of which 10 are known and 51 are unknown..

Of the 10 known soldiers is Gustav Janssen: Born 20.12.1908 and died on 27.08.1944

Included in the email were 2 scanned records. One image was a map, showing where the communal grave is in the cemetery at Cavadinesti . And the other image is the record of the 10 known soldiers

• Kurt Bahr_______________07.07.1921--29.08.1944
• Konstantin Dymski________08.01.1915--27.08.1944
• Hugo Henkel_____________05.05.1911--30.08.1944
• Erich Hockwin____________15.03.1911--27.08.1944
• Gustav Janssen__________ 20.12.1908--27.08.1944
• Paul Krutza______________17.07.1923--04.09.1943
• Kurt Milde_______________16.04.1912--27.08.1944
• Lambert Schephers________17.01.1906--29.08.1944
• Kurt Ventzke_____________06.11.1922--24.08.1944
• Dr. Heinrich Vorbrodt_______24.03.1913--28.08.1944
• 51 unknown_______________________28.08.1944

I was very happy to get that email. I couldn't believe it.. We ALMOST found Gustav Janssen.. But in a way, we did find him and the other soldiers..

Dragos and I did find the cemetery, but not the communal grave.. I'm sure we walked right by it.

I emailed Dragos and Marcel Janssen with the news. Even though we did not find the grave, Mr. Janssen was happy to know his grandfather is buried there.. I sent him a picture of the cemetery.

I still want to go back to Cavadinesti to find the grave of Gustav Janssen. I think it will be easier now with the cemetery map and list of names. I want to photograph the communal grave. And I'd like to photograph the Pruth River too.

I want to send a BIG thank you to Dragos, his friend (whose name I forgot), and to the wonderful people at O.N.C.E www.once.ro

And a big thanks to www.worldwar2.ro ;-)

I hope to update this old post with something new soon....