Internet Archaeology (Mar 2024)
Archaeology and the Public Perception of a Soviet Prisoner of War Cemetery
Abstract
Between July 2021 and November 2022, the federal archaeological office of Bremen (Landesarchäologie) excavated the site of a former cemetery for Soviet Prisoners of War (POW) and forced labourers. The remains had officially been reinterred at an honorary cemetery in Bremen in 1948. Only a small part of this article is about what the excavation revealed and rather its purpose is to reflect on the situation that has arisen between Landesarchäologie and two citizen's initiatives at the time of the official closure of the excavation. We set out how local conflicts can emerge when an archaeological excavation is associated with a highly pollitical topic. We also explore how to manage the public interest while, at the same time, attempting to protect the personal dignity of the buried individuals. We engaged with the historical responsibility the city takes for its industrial sites and its past profit from forced labour and discuss the (often unfamiliar) societal function of the work of archaeologists. The research project aims to identify the people buried and to investigate the status of health provision, food supply and overall daily living in the Soviet POW camps in Bremen by linking the results of archaeology, bioanthropology and historical sources in a database.
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