I have the best readers! A very lovely person going by the username Siberian has been digging out info on the above post mortem photo, which first appeared on the Skull early last year. Although he (I’m assuming you’re a he, Siberian – many apologies if you’re a lady!) couldn’t trace the deceased lady in the picture, he gave me loads of other lovely snippets of information. Rather than it getting lost in the comments under a blog post, I thought it would be nice to give them an article of their own.

As Siberian quite evidently knows a great deal more about Russian soldiers than I do, I will simply quote the info he sent me, minus my not-particularly-useful replies inbetween:

1st message:

Basing on dress uniform and rank signs on collar, this photo should be dated 1940-1942, officer at photo is soviet motorized infantry colonel. I tried to indentify him, is he? , so his name probably is Ivan Prokofievich Verkov, and he was a colonel since 1940. Then, since 1941 and WW2 Russian campaign starting he was a tank regiment commander, then, after wound – commander of tank crews training center in Stalingrad. At my photo he is general-major, and my photo dates 1945. For my sorrow, I fail to found neither name of dead women, nor boy`s name . Probably, his wife and son, but… Hope it was useful.

2nd message:

To cap it all, Siberian even managed to find me a photograph of Colonel Verkov, to go with the information:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Siberian hugely for putting such time and effort into this – even if Colonel Verkov isn’t the man in the original photograph, the story in itself is utterly fascinating.

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