Soviet Field of Honour

At the Soviet Field of Honour in Leusden, next to the Amersfoort cemetery Rusthof, 865 war victims from the former Soviet Union are buried.

On 27 September 1941, 101 prisoners of war from the Soviet Union arrived at the mucho site near Amersfoort station. They had been captured on the Eastern Front not long after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The soldiers were reportedly from Soviet republics in Central Asia, mainly Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. They were considered Untermenschen by the Nazis and treated bestially by them. During their long train journey to the Netherlands, they had barely been given anything to eat or drink. Surrounded by guards, the soldiers had to walk from the station through the city to Camp Amersfoort in Leusden. They attracted a lot of attention. To bystanders, they made a deadly tired, hungry and pitiful impression. Several Amersfoort residents tried to give them some food.

Even during their stay in Kamp Amersfoort , the Russians, as they were called, were treated downright badly. Within six months, 24 of them died of starvation, disease and mistreatment. The camp doctor had the heads of two Soviet POWs who died cut off. He had their skulls boiled out and placed them as curiosities in his study.

On 9 April 1942, the remaining 77 Soviet soldiers were shot. It would turn out to be the second largest mass execution in the Netherlands during World War II. Near the graves of the deceased Soviet soldiers, and not far from the execution site, a monument has been erected: monument Koedriest. The Soviet Field of Honour Foundation has held an annual commemoration here since 2012.

After the war, the remains of the 101 Soviet soldiers were first reburied at Amersfoort's Rusthof cemetery and transferred to the newly constructed Soviet Field of Honour in Leusden in 1947. Slowly they fell into oblivion there, buried anonymously. The Soviet Field of Honour Foundation makes sure they are not forgotten. In 2021, Soviet Field of Honour Foundation managed to identify two of the soldiers.

691 POWs from Margraten

Another 691 Soviet soldiers were buried on the American Battlefield in Margraten, Limburg. They had fought in the Red Army, had been made prisoners of war by the Germans. Many ended up in camps in the Ruhr region (including Stalag VI A in Hemer and Stalag VIK in Stukenbrock), where they had to work in appalling conditions.

Most of the 691 Soviet soldiers buried at Margraten had succumbed to illness in the last days of the war or in the first days and weeks after liberation. The US army had admitted them to hospitals in German towns like Lüdenscheid, Hamm, Dortmund and Bad Lippspringe. After their death - often from tuberculosis - their remains were transferred to the nearest Battlefield outside Germany, so that no Allied war dead had to be buried on enemy territory.

After the war, the authorities wanted to turn the Margraten cemetery into a permanent field of honour for American soldiers only. Soviet soldiers were transferred to Amersfoort, where all 101 'Russians' who died in and near Camp Amersfoort were buried.

73 other war victims

Amersfoort thus acted as a gathering place for victims buried in the Netherlands from the then Soviet Union. The remains of 73 forced labourers and Soviet soldiers in German service (mainly Georgians and Armenians) were also reburied in Amersfoort.

As there was insufficient space at Rusthof, a separate cemetery was established in Leusden. This Soviet Field of Honour was opened by Minister of War W.F. Schokking on 18 November 1948.