Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
by Viktors Demidovs
(Latvian Radio correspondent)
[LSM] Interview with Tālis Ešmits, head of the soldier search unit "Legend"
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This week marks 80 years since the end of World War II in Europe. Although a long time has passed, the ashes of soldiers from that time can still be found in the territory of Latvia. The discovered bones of Latvia's defenders are reburied in cemeteries, but the bones of Nazi German and Red Army soldiers that are found are stored in a so-called bone depot.
According to an interstate agreement, the bones of people who fought on the Nazi side are registered and described by specialists from Germany, where the ashes are also transported.
Read more about the topic in a conversation with Tālis Ešmits, head of the fallen soldiers search unit "Leģenda".
Viktor Demidov: In November, you spoke about the activities of the so-called black archaeologists. In the South Kurzeme region, foreigners had excavated and looted the burial grounds of World War II soldiers. Your unit managed to find out the names of three specific people, who were allegedly from the Netherlands. At that time, you discovered many pieces of ash in a large pit, which for an unknown reason had been dragged more than five kilometers from the original location and hidden on someone else's property. How did this story end? Have the alleged violators been caught?
Tālis Ešmits: No, it has been refused to propose any actions, because in essence it was not a grave originally. Well, there is some international legislation that says that the place where a soldier died is his grave. But it is a convention document that is not currently reflected in the legislation of the Republic of Latvia. Lawyers have worked on it. This issue has been refused.
As a result, these soldiers will be buried in the cemetery. Basically, as I understood it, the damage is that he has already been eliminated, as a result of which everything will be sorted out, and that if such people ever come, we will pay attention to it and continue to monitor this activity. That was the police response.
How many illegal archaeologists are there in Latvia who excavate soldiers' graves? Is the problem still relevant?
She will always be relevant. Not only in Latvia. But we need to look at this problem from another angle – what is the countermeasure to this problem. But this again happens in two directions. This is the legislative base, how it is punished, and the other, one could say, is public education or explanatory work, which is also not unimportant.
In the Republic of Latvia, with some special cases, such as this case in the Netherlands, [it is noticeable] that this situation is still moving for the better for us. People are becoming more educated. People – not only those who are engaged in such activities, but also those who own the land, who see what someone is doing. We don't have a place in Latvia where we don't see something. We always see everything, believe me.
In this case, when there was this situation in the Netherlands, we went around in a circle, and [the residents] saw where, what they were doing, and therefore we can take them to the exact place where it happened, and go to the exact person who saw them and who specifically took [and recorded] what it was like.
It has been 80 years since the fall of Nazism, many places in Latvia have been examined, and the remains of soldiers have been found, but your association continues its work. How do you select the places where you will search for ashes? Are there any places that have not yet been studied?
The first direction, which is the most urgent, is that you suddenly find, when you dig a ditch, build a road, even here in Riga, the Brasa Bridge, when [the remains of soldiers] are there and some decision needs to be made, then you have to go there and do it.
Then the other direction is requests from relatives. The last one we had was on May 3, 2025. There was Kurt Egler, a German lieutenant who was in World War II, who died in 1944 on the Gulbene side. [His] relatives have done something. Then information comes with a red cross in the middle that he is somewhere here. You look at a modern map – 20 hectares of green land. It is clear – a field. A big, big field there.
And he is buried there alone.
Alone. It's easier to find a needle in a haystack if you know it's there - burn the haystack and you'll have it there. But here you can do whatever you want.
We drive there, we go there, then you exclude everything that doesn't need to be excluded. You realize that in the middle she's not there. You have to look somewhere on the edges.
Then you turn on the experience, the feeling, go to nirvana and then you start thinking the way they thought, and [you] think that there is a cave somewhere. But it can be completely wrong, it is 100 percent wrong, but you accept what you want as existing. Take it and hope for a miracle.
But sometimes you know it's there, and then you can't find it. There are things here, even in Pieriga, Kekava, probably Katlakalna. We've been searching there regularly every year since 2012. There's already a kilogram of all kinds of papers, and you can't find anything there, and that's it. Everything is built up there, everything is different. You find it last year. Then you have to calculate how many years [have passed] from 2012 to that [year]. There are 40 soldiers there in two rows, including Latvian legionnaires. These are requests from relatives.
Is there a map like what you're looking for?
Yes, there are archives, there are various materials, stories. It is a legion where Latvians have been, but have not been found. Then there are Red Army soldiers. Our guys check the previous burial sites, supposedly during the war. Go and look. It is as if they must have been reburied in the graves. Then they go, perform exhumations, rebury in those graves, in which place the names of those Latvian soldiers are inscribed. That is also another direction in which we are working.
Those are the three bases in which we find them. There are also those accidental ones, when, let's say, you come for information that you have to do this and that, then at the same time you, taking a metal detector or listening to the story of the neighbor's house, go to the neighbor's house and still find these soldiers. It's such a coincidence. That's at the very end - the fourth option that I could name.
What happens to found foreign soldiers?
First of all, these are international conventions, but a convention is quite broad: let's sit down, let's consult, let's do it. That's the level of a convention.
Then, based on these levels, we arrive at local legislative acts, which may not be precisely defined for us in Latvia.
After these acts, we come to interstate agreements, which are again a priority. There are these interstate agreements between Germany and between Russia and Latvia. These agreements are still working – both one and the other – and are in force.
[Regarding] the Red Army soldiers who are found, according to the agreement, they are, as they say here, the responsibility of the Russian side. Because Russia has taken responsibility, and she is acting in accordance with this agreement. At the moment, the agreement regarding the remains of soldiers works quite like this - on a case-by-case basis. There have been periods when he worked very well, and there have been periods when he worked very hard. At the moment, he is practically not working at all.
Russian specialists are not coming to Latvia?
No, Russian specialists will never go to Latvia.
So what are you doing? Sending to Russia?
No, we don't send them to Russia. We do everything ourselves. Period. Because it's not necessary on their side. Why? Because there are no medical records of the same level created before the war as there were on the German side.
Burials were not carried out in the primitive manner that the German side did during the war.
The Red Army burial system is a mass grave – a mass grave, as we know it. Yes, there are modern technologies – DNA analyses. We can do them, but how much, I’m sorry, it will cost millions. If someone can afford it, please, because here we cannot guarantee that these remains are not mixed up.
There is a situation with four Red Army soldiers, and they have been requested to be transferred to their homes, to family graves. At the very beginning of the war, the Latvian side agreed and gave permission for the transfer of the remains of these soldiers to the Russian Federation, for burial in family graves. The Russian side disappeared.
Now, as I understand it, the affiliates have all come together in one group, and these are the guys who are dealing with exactly this, they said that we told them: "Write to your president to do something!"
Vladimir Putin?
"Yes, he says, well, then write to your president. We've already written to everyone. You've also [written] to everyone." Their relatives were more involved in that. So what about us?
But until Russia takes this step, you're just burying the ashes, right?
No.
So they're stored in boxes somewhere?
Yes, yes, the bone depot. They're waiting there.
And how many are there – hundreds or thousands?
There are about a thousand now. More. Two thousand.
So much.
That's normal. We have a history of war like that.
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