21.08.2018, Novgorod.
The Novgorod search expedition, Dolina, found a mass grave of prisoners killed by fascists during the Great Patriotic War* in Staraya Russa of the Novgorod region, Interfax reports on August 20.
According to the leader of the Medved search party Igor Tuma, the grave is located near the Muravievo village. According to preliminary data, there was a prisoner of war camp in 1941-1944.
The expedition members have found remains of about 500 Soviet soldiers. The leader of the search party noted occupants’ atrocities, “The traumas suggest that many of them were killed with extreme atrocity. Probably, the occupants killed them and beat them to death there before retreat.”
The search party members also found personal effects of front-line soldiers and their identification tags which helped them to find out the fates of Red Army men who went missing in Novgorod region during the Great Patriotic War.
At the end of the last week, the Dolina search expedition in memory of N.I. Orlov celebrated its 30th anniversary in Veliky Novgorod. The members of the expedition are well known in the region. The expedition is the largest search association in Russia which has united 57 search parties numbering more than 1,000 people. For 25 years, the members of Dolina have found and interred remains of more than 118 thousand of soldiers and command officers of The Workers` and Peasants` Red Army; they have identified names of more than 22 thousand Soviet soldiers and officers who died during the war. Dolina was awarded the Russian Federation Presidential Certificate of Gratitude for its work of perpetuating the memory of fallen defenders of the Motherland in 1998 and 2008.
* The war of Soviet Union against the Nazi invasion of 1941, which brought an end to Nazism in Europe – Editor.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
