Red Army POW Memorial

A couple of days ago I visited one of the few remaining original POW memorials in my valley. Most of the memorials were destroyed by the Norwegian Government in 1951 when the gravsites were relocated to Tjøtta War Cemetery.

This memorial is a very beautiful one, sitting on a small hill overlooking the valley. It was here the prisoners buried their comrades who died in the camp located below the hill. In the forest floor one can still see where the graves had been.

The camp itself there is no signs of today as it is farmland. Some locals keep the memorial nice and tidy, and there are signs showing the way up to it following a small tractor road and then a small path into the forest.

In 1945 when the camp was liberated it housed 506 Red Army soldiers, 17 were sick, 80 of them very weak and 7 had died during the camps existence. There are no known photos of the camp but on the museum there is a model of it, built by people who lived next to it and remembered how it looked like.

Inscription:

"To the eternal memory over the comrades who sacrificed their lives so we cold win over the nazi murderers.

Shot: 2 Soviet soldiers.

Dead by starvation and inhuman treatment: 7 Soviet soldiers.

Nedre Sundby POW camp was built on the area below here, and was in use between 1942 and autumn 1945. Ca 500 POWs lived a inhuman life in this camp. Those who died were buried here, but after the Liberation moved to the war cemetery at Tjøtta."