Burial
When we wanted to bury our comrades who had, regretfully, ended their lives, we had to get permission from the Soviet soldiers. The freezing temperature in the harsh Russian land was beyond belief. In the temperature of thirty of forty degrees below zero Centigrade, the ground was completely frozen. No matter how hard we tried to hit it with picks, they only bounced back from the surface. Even after warming the ground with a bonfire, it was still so unyielding that we could not make a hole even ten centimeters deep. In addition, we did not have a lot of wood to burn. So we had to lay our buddy's dead body without any cloth in a slightly lowered area. After sprinkling a little bit of earth, sand and snow, we made a grave-marker out of a small piece of wood and offered a small amount of water in a mess kit without any food in it. That was the best we could do for the burial ceremony. The desolate feelings covered us.
January, 1946