 |
| War Mothers monument Kirkenes marketplace |
Kirkenes is a town in Finnmark in Norway, high up in the extreme North and to the immediate border with Russia.
the middle of the square of Kirkenes is a war memorial. Actually, we should be more precise than a war memorial mothers (Krigsm ødremonumentet) designate, for the heroism of the mothers of Kirkenes in the Second World War is really dedicated to this monument.
The place was because of its strategic location, is particularly affected by the events of the Second World War. Kirkenes was a highly competitive city on the so-called Arctic front. The approximately 150 km Distance away was the only port city of Murmansk in the European part of the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany did not control. Therefore, the ice-free port of Murmansk and the Murmansk vital to Moscow Murmansk railway leading to the Allies.
Huge supply transports ran from America and England through the Arctic Sea to Murmansk, the Soviet Union's support, especially with war material and Moscow can keep on. The Germans had occupied Norway in 1940 moved, in June 1941 around 30,000 troops to Kirkenes. It also came to the greater German naval forces stationed in Northern Norway with base Kirkenes. These had the task to block the Allied convoys or destroy. The attempts of the German "mountain corps Norway," to conquer the city of Murmansk, and thus shut down the Allied supply line (Operation Silver Fox), were prevented by the Soviet defenders. Soviet aircraft bombed Kirkenes day and night. More than 1,000 air raids and more than 328 air attacks by Soviet bombers made the most-bombed city of Kirkenes in Norway.
in exhaustion after a terrible war on the Lizafront (after the river Liza on the Kola Peninsula), in winter often 30 to 40 degrees below zero and with thousands of fallen soldiers and frozen on both sides, it was the Red Army to repel the German forces. In October 1944 the Red Army marched into the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation in the German-occupied Petsamo and Kirkenes. Before retreating, the Germans had burned up to 20 houses all of the buildings, which were after the devastating Soviet bombing still remain.
The fact that a large proportion of the population, especially the elderly, women and children, but survived, was due to the mothers of Kirkenes. Kirkenes lived originally from ore extraction and so was It also close to the city tunnel, which the women converted to an air raid shelter. In it, they could hide and find a refuge.
In this old bomb shelter now a museum, the "Andersgrotta. The marketplace, however, is reserved to the memory of mothers.
chapel of King Oscar II's .
more about Norway
0 comments:
Post a Comment