MOSCOW, April 30. /TASS/. Germany is about to hand over to Russia the first batch of digitized archive information about Soviet prisoners of war who had been kept at German camps during World War II. The special ceremony will take place at the TASS head office in Moscow on May 6, the German embassy said.”The handover of digitized copies of documents from Germany’s federal archive within the framework of the German-Russian project for searching for and digitizing archive materials concerning Soviet and German prisoners of war and interned persons dating back to World War II will take place in Moscow,” the embassy said. “The ceremony will be held at the TASS press-center, with Germany’s ambassador to Russia Geza Andreas von Geyr and Russia’s special presidential representative for international cultural cooperation Mikhail Shvydkoi taking part.Messages of greeting will be read out from Germany’s Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. There will be a presentation of the “German-Russian project for searching for and digitizing archive materials concerning Soviet and German prisoners of war and its humanitarian and political significance.”Germany will open to Russian specialists information about Soviet prisoners of war and forced laborers, which is kept at the federal archive in Koblenz. The archive contains information about the plight of 500,000 Soviet citizens.It is expected that taking part in the online conference will be the President of the German People’s Union for the Care of Military Graves, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, and the President of Germany’s Federal Archives, Michael Hollman.At the TASS press-center Germany will be represented by German embassy officials and staffers of the German Historical Institute in Moscow, and Russia, by the deputy chief of the Federal Archive Agency Andrei Yurasov, director of the Russian State Military Archive Vladimir Tarasov, president of ELAR corporation Sergei Balandyuk, the Russian Defense Minster’s aide Alexander Kirilin, and chief of the Defense Ministry’s Directorate for Commemorating Fallen Soldiers Pavel Sheludchenko.
