http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETgyFAK__YM

Fascinating modern film showing AH grave sites in Galicia. Compare the individual unknown AH graves starting from 01:26 onwards to the mass grave of 26 unknown Russian soldiers starting at 02:11 to 02:22. The visuals say it all. How difficult it must be after all these years and the political upheavals to ascertain who those 26 Russians are!

John
Toronto

Just had a look and was fixated. There's some graves there. Thanks for posting the link

Cheers Andy.

John, That's a moving and fascinating testament. Thank you.

As an afterhought, and an edit, it strikes me that while all the cemeteries of the Great War are poignant, these ones are especially so. They commemorate something more than just the dead soldiers - here we have a lost era. Cliche thing to say, I know, but it seems impossibly remote when we think of the Dual Monarchy and Tsarist Russia. In those films there is a reminder of how cataclysmic the history of Central and Eastern Europe has been in the last lifetime....dynasties, political systems and societies swept away. The surrounding scenery, with quiet woods and rolling hills, made the cemeteries seem even more lonely and eerie, almost surreal. The great concentration cemeteries of the Western Front reach out and grab us with immediacy : these quiet and forlorn ones in the East challenge us in a very different way. I find myself moved, and unable to put my thoughts into words.

Phil.

Thanks PJA for your support to my attempt, however small to educate anyone about the huge significances of the Eastern fronts generally. With everyone dead now and the political destruction by sheer neglect during the years of Communistic control over the man-made, built and altered landscapes your feelings expressed in your last post are shared by many many people both living in the former Eastern Front areas and elsewhere in our world. Four empires swept away; four empires that fought one another (including at least two who were supposed to be Allies); rampant epidemics and diseasel; massive casualties (eg. at least 6 battles had 250,000 casualties each); major civilian displacements, forced evacuations and resettlements and mass refugee crises; civil wars; anarchy.....
John
Toronto