What I found after the Volksbund went by

[HJP]

A professional of what? Since when do you have to be a professional to dig a hole in a private property, and exhume objects that archeologists still consider worthless crap because they are not old enaugh, and will not give them any new information about WW2?

Would any professional archeologist have had the slightest interest in this site? I highly doubt it, exept if he was a militaria collector himself.

As a medical student, I estimate that I am at least as qualified as an archeologist to dig up a former grave, and as a militaria freak, I think I am more qualified then the vast majority of archeologists to interpret the discovery of WW2 equipments.

JL

M

[Jean-Loup]

Sorry. I have been so iritated by some comments in this thread that I didnt notice.

[Jonathan M]

JL

As a teacher of history i fully understand and support what you do.If people earlier on in history had not dug up the sites around the world our knowledge would have been very poor. I only wish i was closer to offer my help. i follow and read your threads with great interest
jonathan

[GFM]

Jean-Loup, I have followed your threads with great interest as well. It is my opinion that you have done history a great service by telling the story of these unfortunate soldiers who died at this site (in this thread) and helping recover the mass grave of soliders (in the other thread) so that they could be properly buried and any possible living relatives notified.

I too, wish that I lived closer and could assist.

Excellent work, my friend.

[Bill Gaynor]

Keep Up The Good Work!

Hi Jean-Loup,
I've written you a few times to commend you for your fine work .
Don't let a few get you mad, you really do good work and it it is important work when it comes to repatriating remains to their families and homeland. Everything I have seen of your work it is very respectful and as the other have said you are doing things to add to history.
Have a question, how do you deal with possible explosive devices (i.e. unexploded shells, grenades, etc.) since they can be very unstable.
Keep Up Your Good Work, The Rest Are Jealous They Can't Be There With You
Bill

[Robert Donnell]

War Graves

As a Soldier yes indeed i am very respectful of War Graves. I am a university trained archaeologist as well. We dug a grave for OFFICIAL purposes, one of eight found on a Civil War battle field. We found seven Items. They were one chip of bone about the size of a one Euro coin, and six Missouri buttons making the graves Confederate.

We reinterred all seven items and marked the graves with Veteran's Administration markers. "Unknown, April 8 1864, 11th Missouri Infantry CSA" Battlefields have cool stuff, War Graves do not. My take on the overall picture is that Confederates were thrown in a hole and Yankees were given elaberorate burials. This says much about the reason why Yankee allways has the preface: Damn.

The 11th MO Inf was my GGGGrandfather's unit, these men were friends of his. Was I respectful yes. Did I dig? Yes, I needed to know.

[PZIV]

Cam S, I don't even know if you're reading this thread anymore, but I understand where you are coming from. Maybe you don't know JL, but I know him fairly well and I think the person digging is what decides whether its "good" or "bad" in these uncertain circumstances. JL is a respectable person and friend, but somebody looking for some finds to sell or something.

[Jean-Loup]

Just to make things clear, I have never sold any objects that I discovered in graves, and am not planing on doing so. I always make an important effort to interview locals about the events that lead to the deaths of the soldiers, and I later retranscribe these interviews. I have never seen anybody else to date doing work in such a thurough way concerning WW2 sites.


"Have a question, how do you deal with possible explosive devices (i.e. unexploded shells, grenades, etc.) since they can be very unstable."

It depends on the condition and the item. I have no interest in shells, so if I find one, I leave it as it is and dont touch it, particularly if it was fired.
For grenades, I also usualy dont touch them, exept if they are in such exelent condition it is worth emptying them; or if they are in such bad condition, that they are already brocken, and the powder can just be poured out.
I only have two ground dug grenades that I kept: a stick grenade and a egg grenade found in Russia. The russians emptied the stick grenade for me, and the egg grenade just came appart on its own, so wasnt a problem.

At the site that this thread is about, I found something like 6 egg grenades. The were completely rotten, but I put them aside anyways, planing to rebury them. In the end, I forgot to rebury them, and when I went back to take care of them at a latter date, I found out that a local person had taken them and kept them as souvenirs. With the condition they were in, they werent dangerous anyways.

About soldiers and respect for graves, it was recently discovered that two of the nine french soldiers killed in Ivory Coast in 2004 (see this thread http://dev.wehrmacht-awards.com/foru...d.php?t=210442 ) had had their bodies inverted and thus buried in the wrong graves. Both bodies had to be exhumed a few months latter after the mother of one of the soldiers asked to see the photos of the body, and saw that it was not her son in the pictures, and thus that it was not her son that was buried in her sons grave.... No comment

JL

[Jean-Loup]

By the way, at christmas I was showing some of these items to my father, and when he touched the lucky charm at the bottom right of this picture, he said: "this thing is very light, it seems to be hollow".

A few days latter, I looked at the lucky charm more closely, and saw that it could indeed be opened, and that there was probably something very interesting inside, that had meant a lot to its owner. With adrenaline rushing, I carefully opened the little jewel that had not been opened since 1944, when its owner was killed and buried with it!

Unfortunately there was nothing inside...


JL

[PZIV]

JL, I did not mean to imply that you would sell the items. I meant to imply that I know you wouldn't and I know you really care about the history behind the item. I was talking about the people who aren't like you.

[pattiewhack]

Looking through this thread I found many things I agree and disagree with. I consider it perfectly OK to preserve relics found on battlefields, as long as any human remains are dealt with in a respectful and professional manner. I know that if I was to die in a battle and was lost underground, I would have no problems with being exhumed and buried properly many years later- Its the respectful thing to do. Just my thoughts.