FORGOTTEN GRAVES

After the Second World War, many prisoners remained in the USSR. Their labor was used for the reconstruction of what they used to destroy.

On the territory of Armenia there were 10-13 POW camps in Yerevan, Kirovakan, Leninakan, Spitak… They built houses, roads (Victory Bridge, the building of the Sevan mental hospital, stadium “Dynamo”, Aluminum Plant).

Armenians were supportive of prisoners of war, shared with them their last bread. In 1948 it was declared an amnesty, but very few were lucky enough to return home. In Armenia there is a cemetery of prisoners of war in Spitak, in the village Eraskhavan in Ararat region. In the Hrazdan Gorge, in Kanaker HPS 278 prisoners are buried: 148 Germans, 56 Hungarians, 67 Romanians, three French and one Austrian.

ALICE ALAVERDYAN

AN INTERESTING FACT

In Yerevan, the years of captivity spent Austrian scientist, founder of ethology (the science of animal behavior), Nobel laureate Konrad Lorenz. Captivity years he did not spent in vain, he studied animal behavior, taking notes on pieces of paper from cement bags. These records later become the basis for his work “Russian records” for which Lorenz was awarded the Nobel Prize.