The monument / dome of the Romanian Militaries of the War for the Nation’S Union (1916 – 1919)

THE MONUMENT / DOME OF THE ROMANIAN MILITARIES OF THE WAR FOR THE NATION'S UNION (1916 – 1919) The construction of the Heroes' Cemetery was made according to the plan of Lieutenant-Colonel Dumitru Vasiliu, who, on 1st March 1930, began the tracing of the 16 plots necessary for the reburial of the heroes, a plan complied with even in the current configuration. The foundation stone of the central crypt was laid on 15th March 1930. A sarcophagus was placed above the crypt, suggesting the tomb of the unknown soldier and a dome was erected, composed of two overlapping empty domes. In the small dome there is the church bell donated by "Defending Sons of Homeland" Association. An impressive process of bringing the heroes to the newly designed necropolis begins from this moment. Exhumed from the county cemeteries, religious services were held in each locality, and the population mobilized on all the travel routes to the city of Buzău, greeted with flowers the bullock carts that carried the bones of the heroes, holding memorial services in the centre of each locality. The bones were brought and deposited in the Heroes' Church. Eyewitnesses say that the church was permanently half full of bones, although the volunteers, many of whom were children, washed them daily with care and piety, freeing up the place for new transports. On Maundy Thursday of 1930, Bishop Ghenadie officiated a memorial service for the exhumed heroes, and on 10th May 1930, the unidentified heroes were placed in the central crypt, and the identified ones in separate graves, according to their nationalities. Between 1930-1932, an imposing stone and concrete mausoleum was built in the Heroes' Cemetery in the city of Buzău, consisting of two superimposed domes supported on pillars, one octagonal and one hexagonal finished with a cross, supported on the first. On the first dome, on the outside, the names of the localities where the heroes from Buzău sacrificed themselves are inscribed: Neajlov, Cocargeaua, Doaga, Mărăşeşti. In the space protected by the pillars of the first dome, a crypt was set up, that houses the bones of the fallen heroes on the territory of Buzău county, covered by a white marble plaque on which the inscription was engraved: "Crowning your foreheads with the laurels of immortality, I brought you with gratitude and piety from the plains of Buzău county and I placed you under this dome, 7,867 unknown heroes of the 1916-1918 war". In the Heroes' Cemetery of Buzău 9,653 unknown heroes rest (from both belligerent camps, the Entente and the Central Powers, which makes this necropolis the largest cemetery of heroes in Romania and one of the most important cemeteries with unknown heroes in Europe): 8,001 Romanian militaries, 753 German militaries, 744 Austro-Hungarian militaries, 136 Russian and Bulgarian militaries, 14 Turkish militaries, 5 Italian militaries and 1 Jewish military, who fought in the First World War for the ideals of their homeland.