In April 2020, the Romanian Embassy in Moscow, after a decade of difficult research, published the nominal list of 20,718 prisoners of war, both military and civilian Romanian deportees, who died in camps in Russia between 1941 and 1956. A document that attempts to shed some light and to bring to the attention of the descendants and public opinion in Romania the identification data of the Romanians who never returned from the Soviet camps.
Unfortunately, this news came at the height of the pandemic, so it didn’t get the media coverage it deserved. We were all more concerned about the COVID-19 lockdown and the challenges brought by the virus. Besides, it was still peace.
I recently rediscovered the article when I archived the data on my Facebook page, and I think it’s a good opportunity to bring this topic up again, especially in the context of a growing sympathy for Russia in certain circles, despite the fact that we are talking about a country that has had a profoundly negative impact on our nation.
So I invite you to read the two articles published on the website of the Romanian Embassy in the Russian Federation:
- Nominal list of 20,718 Romanian prisoners of war (military) and “internees” (deported civilians) who died in camps in Russia between 1941 and 1956
- Commemoration of Romanian heroes
If you want to jump straight to the lists, you can find them in point 6 of the article in the second link. The first file contains the list of 20,718 Romanian citizens who died in Russia and who could be identified during the research in the Russian archives. The second file contains the locations of multinational cemeteries on the current territory of the Russian Federation (those codes in the Obs. column of the first file).
I’ve also put the lists on my cloud, in case you can’t access the original files:[list][attachment]
I have friends and acquaintances who found relatives on this list. They only knew their relatives were taken to Soviet camps and never returned. Even though it came after so long, finding out where their relatives were was a small consolation.
I would very much like the younger ones not to forget that Russia has a painful impact on Romania’s history and that history if we are not careful, can repeat itself.
The photo is from the Heroes’ Cemetery in Sinaia
