For almost eighty years, 101 Soviet soldiers from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have been buried at the Soviet War Cemetery in Leusden. Unnamed, because the Nazis destroyed all information about this group of men captured and later shot. Now it is most likely clear who one of them is.
According to researcher Remco Reiding, everything indicates that Ilsha Machametov was murdered by the Germans just outside camp Amersfoort. “Dna testing is needed to be absolutely sure,” says Reiding, also director of the Soviet Field of Honor Foundation.
Machametov’s family, living in Kazakhstan, is already aware. One of his daughters is 85-year-old Modjangoel. She and her daughter Dilnaz had been looking for their father and grandfather who had been missing since the war for years.
Reiding explains how it was possible to identify Isha Machametov eighty years later:
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