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Memorials in the forest

Writer's picture: InkaInka

POW memorial in the forest

I had plans to find a POW site today but reading the news this morning I got reason to change my plans. Late last night a trailer had crashed with a bear which ran off into the forest. Of course this happened where I was about to go, but I thought it best to follow the advice to stay away from the forest there as wounded bears is not what you want to encounter, and the forest will be full of hunters trying to track it down.


Instead I thought I could start another project , to photograph the Soviet memorials which is scattered around the valley. These monuments were put up on the POW/KZ camps burial grounds just after the war , but not many of them has survived and few know they exists.


In the early 1950`s the Norwegian government decided to exhume and rebury the Soviets from all the different camp sites all over Norway. They were going to be reburied on a few centralized memorial sites. This project was tried done in secrecy and the reasoning of it all was fear of spies since many of the sites were close to sensitive military areas. But I am working on a whole article about this operation so lets get back to the forest.


First place I went to I have been several times before but never with a camera. Here was a rather large camp for Soviet POWs and for a short periode also Yugoslav prisoners. On a small hill near the camp was the burial ground where the original monument still stand. In the forest one can see traces of the graves that was exhumed in 1951.


ww2 pow gravesite
One can still see where the graves once were.

soviet ww2 memorial
A rarely visited memorial.

cyrilic inscriptions on the memorial

"You fell in the fight against nazism. For freedom,fatherland and all Europe. Rest in Peace  , dear comerades , the fatherland will never forget you"
"You fell in the fight against nazism. For freedom,fatherland and all Europe. Rest in Peace , dear comrades , the fatherland will never forget you"

Here rest russian prisoners of war who died in german imprisonment. 46 men died of hunger 4 men shot and 3 Serbians died between 1.1.44 - 7.5.45"
"Here rest russian prisoners of war who died in german imprisonment. 46 men died of hunger 4 men shot and 3 Serbians died between 1.1.44 - 7.5.45"

 memorial plate ww2 saltdal

pow camp bridge
The remains of the POW camp bridge, built by the first Soviet prisoners that came to this site.

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