help with WW2 events abroad please

[toni*]

Ok i'm not sure where to post this so i am posting it here and will hope that a moderator will move it to the correct place.

I have just visited my nan and she has told me some vague details of my Grandads life before he came to the UK in 1948

I always thought he came here in during WW2 as he worked clearing bombs off railways lines, but now she gives me a year of immigration! i already know the place - Norfolk

anyway this is what she has told me. - it is very vague

During WW2 The Germans had my Grandad working on a farm, he was not sent to a concentration camp, and the Germans looked after him well, However the Russians shot his dad and his elder brother. he had a younger brother who died in infantcy. He assumed that his Mother had been killed too but just after he married my Nan in 1955 he discovered she was still alive, they sent wedding photos but she died before receiving them.

At some point before he came to the UK as a displaced citizen (he was never naturalised as you had to pay for that) he worked in Belguim in a mine with a friend of his, unfortunatley there was a big accident and his friend died and my Grandad left the mining industry.

by trade he was a carpenter. - presumabley he learned this in Ukraine before WW2 as he was a carpenter when he came to the UK

Now i am thinking (it was the way my nan said it) that this mining accident caused him to leave Belguim and come to the UK and was wondering if anyone could help me put a time frame to this event and also to the time when my grandads father & elder brother was killed, i.e does anyone know of any big mining accidents in Belguim before 1948 but after the start of WW2, maybe it wasn't as big as my nan thinks, and of a casulty list as i am assuming again here that his friend was Ukrainian as was my Gradad.
also When did the Russinas invade Ukraine as part of the German army?

i am not sure if my Grandad had other siblings, I know he had a niece who came to the UK to visit him circa 1995, unfortunatley contact was lost.

i am aware this is vague but it is what my nan has just told me.

thanks for reading this

 

[stanmapstone]

For details on Russians serving in the German Army see
http://www.germanwarmachine.com/hitlersforeignlegions/russiannationals.htm

Quote
One group that deserves special mention with regard to foreign units in German service are the Ukrainians. Ukraine contributed thousands of recruits to the German war effort during the four-year war on the Eastern Front.

Stan

[Hannia]

toni,

In order to get detailed history of Grandfather's  WW2 experience, contact the Bad Arolsen  Archives. Germans kept excellent records  of everyone that set foot in Germany during WW2. These archives will provide you w/exact experience in Germany and all kinds  of other personal detail. Inquiry by immediate family is available for free. All you need to provide is his full name and any other  spelling variants and his exact birth date. Do not provide more info than that !!! Your inquiry can be done by e-mail. I understand the archives have upgraded their svce and response can be received via e-mail as well. Response can take as much as three months or as little as several days.

Upon accessing site click HUMANITARIAN REQUESTS. Follow instructions.
http://www.its-arolsen.org/en/homepage/index.html

My Father and Godfather had worked as miners in Belgium.  They were Ukrainian POW last 6 mos of WW2 and Ukrainian DP's  post WW2.  They were there for six months (appx middle of 1947) and then returned to Germany.  My Godfather, as a single person, was allowed to immigrate to England shortly after the return.  Our family  immigrated to States 7 yrs later.  Father would frequently refer to the dead canaries in the mines and comment how mining was not a job for any human.

Once you ascertain exact place of origin for Granddad, let me know and I can help you w/Granddad's ancestry and possibly to locate surviving family still in Ukraine.
_________________________________

There was one coal mining explosion 8/5/1948 in Dampremy>Belgium w/21 dead. 
http://gabe.web.psi.ch/pdfs/PSI_Report/ENSAD98App.pdf

There are 100 yr PRIVACY LAWS in Belgium, but just maybe because it was a
mining accident, the municipality might not hold you to the rule???
http://belgium.rootsweb.ancestry.com/rep/bel/muni/write_muni.html

[toni*]

thanks Hannia in the meantime from this post being created i have conacted Badarsolen and found a wealth of information for my grandfather but not for his brother or parents although i now know their names 

i did not know the bit about Belguim thats a great help

my grandfather origin was said to be Zahutyn however my uncle went there last year and this was his last address before he was taken by the Germans and his actual p.o.b was Bukoweic

in 1918 this land belonged to Ukraine in 1921 it officially belonged to Poland, my grandfather said he would rather be stateless than Polish  my grandfather was born in 1919 so technically then the land didnt belong to any country