Irma Ramin turns 95: A life characterized by family and cohesion!

Irma Ramin turns 95: A life characterized by family and cohesion!

On June 26, 2025, Irma Ramin celebrated her 95th birthday at the Lebenskreise retirement home in Lenzen. Surrounded by her family, she looked back on an eventful life, which she describes with gratitude and love. Her four children picked up the celebrant to enjoy a meal together. Her six grandchildren and 16 great-grandchildren also announced visits to properly celebrate this special day.

“The solidarity in our family is the greatest gift,” says Irma Ramin, who appreciated a small birthday group. She even received congratulations from Walter Jahnke, the mayor of Lenzen. A large bouquet of flowers shone on the gift table, while a pillow with the number 95 brought special joy.

An eventful life

Irma Ramin was born on June 24, 1930 in Steesow. Her parents, Christoph and Minna Hagelstein, ran an agricultural business while her father worked as a forest worker. Her youth was strongly influenced by the Hitler dictatorship and the Second World War. Although she has many memories of the end of the war, the war years themselves are less present. “We were lucky because my father often worked with two Russian prisoners of war who were invited to eat with us,” she says. The cleansing operations following the occupation by Soviet troops were particularly striking. “We were treated well, no soldiers came to us,” she adds, recounting how her mother hid her during the Red Army invasion.

In 1947, Irma met her future husband Gerhard Ramin at a wedding. Two years later they married and initially lived as small farmers. Irma Ramin worked in agriculture, became a milkmaid and was active in raising cattle. The couple gave birth to four children together, including two sons who were active in boxing. One of them even became GDR champions. Gerhard Ramin died in 2015, which marked a deep turning point in her life. After several falls, Irma decided to move into the retirement home last year, where she is now lovingly cared for.

The memory of times gone by

Irma Ramin's stories are not just personal memories; they are also part of a larger historical picture. There are a large number of Soviet war cemeteries in Germany that preserve the memory of the victims of the Second World War. These graves are often uniformly designed and are located in separate complexes or clearly demarcated sections in municipal cemeteries. According to that German-Russian Museum Berlin-Karlshorst There are 4,185 locations of graves of Soviet war victims and monuments in Germany, which were created in collaboration with the Office for War Graves Care.

In total, around 640,000 graves of citizens of the former Soviet Union are known in Germany, most of them victims of the Second World War. The graves include not only Russians, but also members of other nationalities, which reflects the diversity of these memorial sites. These places make an important contribution to honoring those who lost their lives in the fight against the National Socialist regime and to remembering those who died in German captivity.

Irma Ramin still remembers these difficult times vividly and emphasizes how important it is that the memory of the past is kept alive. As she celebrated her 95th birthday, she shows once again that family ties and personal historical awareness accompany and strengthen us, no matter how old we get.