09-05-2025, Ostend

Commemoration of the fallen soldiers, in Ostend.

On May 9, the Church of St. John the Evangelist in Ostend celebrated the 80th anniversary of the victory over fascism with a Divine Liturgy in memory of the fallen soldiers. For this day, we formed our own small group, the "Immortal Regiment," based on portraits of our loved ones who participated in the Second World War. At the end of the Divine Liturgy, we held a memorial service of pannykhida in the church, after which we went to the Kortemark Cemetery and celebrated a litiya. Here lies one of the currently known burial sites of Soviet prisoners of war and partisans who died on Belgian territory:
https://belgium.mid.ru/nl/voinskie_zakhoron/zakhoron_2mir/

In 2010, the names of seven people were established at the site of the mass grave, including Sergei Bondar and Sergei Masliy (Ukrainian SSR) and Grigory Alesenko (Belarusian SSR). All three died in August 1944 of tuberculosis at a Wehrmacht construction site.
According to information on the website of the Russian Embassy in Belgium, six Soviet citizens died in this area in 1944. They were members of a construction brigade formed by the SS and transferred to Belgium from a concentration camp on the Channel Island of Olderny. The remaining members of the brigade are buried in Westvleteren, Proven, and Reninge, where every year on Victory Day, their compatriots from the former Soviet Union come to pay their respects.
Eternal memory!