Talk:2012-11-23 49 8

Awesome spot (and a Holy Hash, too) - it's always interesting to explore a graveyard! I'm curious who'll get the Coffin Potato Achievement. Have fun! I would love to go there myself, but I have absolutely no time to spare tomorrow. --ilpadre 01:31, 22 November 2012 (EST)

It was great, thank you RecentlyChanged 14:38, 25 November 2012 (EST)

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I have come to this page quite late, but I just got interested in other Coffin Potatoes after recording one myself. This is a really strange graveyard, I would love to be able to research more.

The last names of the deceased are definitely Ukrainian (or possibly, but much less likely, Belarussian). Last names ending in -uk or -enko are very common there, such names as Мацюк (Matsyuk), deriving from biblical name Mathew and Мельниченко (Melnichenko), roughly meaning 'miller', are actually quite popular. Forshtat is a bit of a curiosity. It is likely an imperfect (should read Forshtadt) transliteration of Russian/Ukrainian transliteration/loanword Форштадт, taken from German Vorstadt 'suburb' (especially in the medieval sense as a village outside of city walls).

First names Ilya (east Slavic version of Elijah) and Valentina are also very common there. Berta seems a like an effect of assimilation into German culture.

But there are also Hebrew inscriptions. Were these people Ukrainian Jews? The German-sounding name Forshtat could be actually Yiddish. Birth years are also close, during the timeframe of Stalin's rule in the USSR, Ukraine being a part of it then. Karlsruhe had a significant Jewish community before the Holocaust, and has one - again. Very interesting historical puzzle...