Russian War Graves Nidrum

n the cemetery of the hamlet of Nidrum, 30 Soviet soldiers are buried.
They were prisoners of war from the Elsenborn prison camp and the Sourbrodt labor camps.

In the foreground are two unidentified, they were probably killed during the bombing of Camp Elsenborn on August 9 by the USAAF.
Their tombstones bear the Cyrillic inscription: "Unknown Soviet Citizen – Prisoner of War".

The 28 nominative tombs are also kept in Cyrillic.
One of them is the Soviet Soldier – Kalmikov Andrei Andrejivitsch

During the winter of 1914-1942 heavy snowfall caused extensive damage in the wooded area around Sourbrodt.
As a result, a labor camp for 52 Russian workers was established, the POWs arrived on July 3, 1942.
Their physical condition was so abysmal that carriages had to be provided to transfer them from the station to the camp.
From March 1943, a second small out-of-work camp of the Elsenborn camp was established in the vicinity of the Bosfagne Bridge over the Ruhr, where Soviet prisoners of war had been housed since 1941.
They were mainly used in the forests for clearing work and during the hay harvest.

Those who died were given a provisional burial place in the "Nidrumer Heck" quarry.
After the war, the city council decided on November 12, 1947 to transfer them to Nidrum cemetery.

Finally, on October 14, 1996, a bronze statue by the Russian sculptor Nicolaevitch Burganowaus was unveiled among the graves.
It includes a trilingual inscription in German, French and Cyrillic that reads: « Aux Soldats Soviétiques morts dans la Région de Butgenbach ».