Excavating the Anonymous Dead of World War II

Erwin Kowalke, a member of the German War Graves Association, excavates the remains of soldiers who died during World War II. To this point he has collected and cataloged the remains of over 20,000 soldiers.

“People tell me to just let the bones sleep in the woods,” said Kowalke, a member of the German War Graves Assn. who has been searching for skeletons for 43 years. “But I say to them that no matter what this generation did, without them you wouldn’t be here.

“In these bones you see what war is like. I know war now. I’ll tell you what it is. War is young men killing other young men they do not know on the orders of old men who know one another too well.”

Kowalke’s father died in the war somewhere in Germany. In a very real sense, he is doing this for his father.

The LA Times has a haunting two-pager about Kowalke’s work, guaranteed to give goosebumps.

Bonedigger [LAtimes]