Word: torgau
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...many World War II veterans, this year's ceremonies marking the 40th anniversary of the great conflict's end will be celebrations of survival and nostalgic returns to lost youthfulness. But one such gathering in Torgau, East Germany, last week had deeper significance. The event commemorated the April afternoon in 1945 when U.S. and Soviet soldiers encountered one another at the Elbe River in central Germany. At a time when U.S.-Soviet relations are chilly indeed, a few Americans met some of the Soviets they had first seen 40 years ago in what is likely to be the year...
Like most historical moments, the original meeting at the Elbe was not as crystalline as time and legend have etched it. The first encounter, on April 25, 1945, took place at Strehla, 18 miles upstream from Torgau; it involved a U.S. reconnaissance team of the 69th Infantry Division, led by Lieut. Albert Kotzebue. Three hours later another patrol, under Lieut. William D. Robertson, came upon a group of Soviet infantrymen near Torgau. Inching out onto the girders of a wrecked bridge over the Elbe, Robertson embraced Lieut. Alexander Silvashko of the 173rd Rifle Regiment...
Robertson and Silvashko were among the participants in the Torgau celebration last week. Altogether, 60 Americans from the 69th Infantry Division Association, with a sprinkling of other former U.S. soldiers, greeted 25 Soviet veterans. There were hugs and reminiscences in halting English, Russian and German and, as at the original meeting, in sign language. Souvenir dollars were exchanged for souvenir rubles as they had been in April 1945, and toasts were offered at a lunch in Torgau's District Culture House. Though the spirit of wartime friendship was briefly recaptured, present reality intruded. The U.S. Government boycotted the event...
...moving conclusion to the day's events, representatives of both sides laid another wreath at the Torgau cemetery against a polished gravestone on which clasped hands are chiseled. Buried there is Joseph Polowsky, a Chicago taxi driver and former 69th Division rifleman who was a member of the Kotzebue patrol. When he died two years ago of cancer, his wish to be buried beside the Elbe was granted by East German authorities...
...celebrate the 40th anniversary of the end of World War II, planeloads of graying and thickening Americans are suddenly arriving in strange lands and looking around them with half-remembering wonderment at half-forgotten places with names like Torgau, Remagen, Iwo Jima. Torgau is the German town where U.S. and Soviet forces linked up along the Elbe River on April 25, 1945. The recent Soviet shooting of an American officer in East Germany has cast a pall on the anniversary celebration. The U.S. military now says that it would be inappropriate to attend, but Robert Swan, an organizer...