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My grandfathers name was Adam Fischler died 2.8.1944.

According to the letter that I have he was buried in Veles ein stadt am agaisczea Meer. I cannot find that on a map. He was born in Stari Futog on 28.XI 1914.

I was told his cousin was buried there also.

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    His name is of German origin but his birthplace was in today's Serbia. Did he speak German? When reading "Veles" I first thought about "Veldes" (Bled in today's Slovenia). But it does not lie at the sea, just at a lake. It would be helpful if you could reproduce the part of that letter you cite here as image so that people could see the original words.
    – nebulon42
    Commented Feb 7, 2020 at 20:26
  • @nebulon42, can't meer "sea" basically mean "lake"?
    – JPmiaou
    Commented Feb 7, 2020 at 22:28
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    According to the 1913 gazetteer of Hungary, Ófutak (Stari Futog) was a town with no predominant language; it lists German, Serbian, Hungarian, and Slovak as native languages claimed by a significant proportion of residents. The local church was Orthodox, Roman Catholics were recorded in next-door Újfutak, and Lutherans had to go a bit further down the road to Újvidék (Novi Sad). For what (little) it's worth, the civil registration office was local (but the only place that's now in Serbia that has any civil registrations available online -- that I've found -- is Szabadka).
    – JPmiaou
    Commented Feb 7, 2020 at 22:42
  • @JPmiaou there are some big lakes that are also referred to as Meer e.g. the Steinhuder Meer (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steinhuder_Meer). But for Lake Bled I think that would be rather unlikely. bgwiehle has a better interpretation.
    – nebulon42
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 8:22
  • Meer usually means sea my grandparents spoke Hungarian and German.
    – monika
    Commented Feb 9, 2020 at 0:42

1 Answer 1

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The phrase following the placename is:

eine Stadt am Ägäisches Meer

that is, "a city on the Aegean Sea"

That means that "Veles" must be in either Greece or Turkey

Fuzzy Gazetteer suggests a number of possibles for Greece. Vélos and Vólos are on the coast. Turkey doesn't have any good matches on the coast

No likely places are marked on the Volksbund "Kriegsgräberstätten" map, so burial was probably not in a military cemetery.

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  • I also thought about the Aegean Sea but found it unlikely. I didn't think of that he most probably died in war - abroad.
    – nebulon42
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 8:20
  • There's also Veles, North Macedonia, on the Vardar River 100km from the Aegean.
    – shoover
    Commented Feb 8, 2020 at 17:04

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