Georgian Uprising On Texel - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Georgians lie buried in a ceremonial cemetery at the Hogeberg near Oudeschild. The survivors may have feared facing the same fate as most Soviet collaborators: forced repatriation, under the terms of the Yalta Conference, often followed by incarceration and banishment and, for officers, execution. The 228 Georgians who survived by hiding from the German troops in coastal minefields, or who were concealed by Texel farmers, were turned over to Soviet authorities. After arrival at a collection camp in the Soviet Union, 26 Georgians were singled out and banished together with their families and nearly all others disappeared into Stalin's Gulags. Those still alive in the mid-1950s were rehabilitated and allowed to return home. Until 1991, the ambassador of the Soviet Union to the Netherlands visited the graves of the Georgians on 4 May every year, and, at least during the latter visits, called the Georgians "Heroes of the Soviet Union". On 4 May 2005, Mikheil Saakashvili visited the graves for the first time as the president of independent Georgia.

The German dead were initially buried in a part of the general cemetery in Den Burg. In 1949 they found their final resting place at Ysselsteyn military cemetery, Limburg province, the Netherlands. The cemetery is administered by the German War Graves Commission.

The final resting places of several Allied flight crews can also be found in the community cemetery in Den Burg.

A permanent exhibition dedicated to these events can be found "in a corner" of the Aeronautical Museum at the island's airport.

One of the last Georgian survivors of the uprising died in July 2007 and was buried with military honors in Zugdidi, Georgia. There were two Georgian survivors still alive in 2010: Grisha Baindurashvili, who is now 88 years old and lives in Kaspi, a village 40 km west of Tbilisi, and Eugeny Artemidze, who was one of the main organizers of the rebellion; he died at age 90 on June 22, 2010, on the same day that he went to war 69 years before.