Soviet War Cemetery Kurkliai

In the village of Kurkliai there is a Soviet WWII cemetery in front of the local church. Stone steps lead to the central statue of a Soviet soldier with flag and machine gun. Many of these statues were removed after the independence of Lithuania and ended up in Grutas Park. The plan was also to remove this image, but the locals rebelled against it. They found that the statue belongs to the cemetery and that the relatives of the Soviet soldiers are also entitled to a full memorial place. Even the red star in front of the statue has been preserved.

The well-maintained site also consists of 20 large gravestones, 18 with a plaque "unknown soldier" and 2 with famous fallen soldiers, and a wall with more than 100 names of soldiers who fell in the region under the text "forever in memory". There is also a plaque commemorating a monument to Lithuanian freedom fighters in the period 1918-1928. The monument itself was removed by the Soviets in 1952.

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Source

• Text: Jörgen Brouwer
• Photos: Jörgen Brouwer