War Victim Research Articles

Identification of the 18 World War II executed citizens of Adele, Rethymnon, Crete using an ancient DNA approach and low coverage genomes

In the Battle of Crete during the World War II occupation of Greece, the German forces faced substantial civilian resistance. To retribute the numerous German losses, a series of mass executions took place in numerous places in Crete; a common practice reported from Greece and elsewhere. In Adele, a village in the regional unit of Rethymnon, 18 male civilians were executed and buried in a burial pit at the Sarakina site. In this study, the first one conducted for a conflict that occurred in Greece, we identified for humanitarian purposes the 18 skulls of the Sarakina victims, following a request from the local community of Adele. The molecular identification of historical human remains via ancient DNA approaches and low coverage whole genome sequencing has only recently been introduced. Here, we performed genome skimming on the living relatives of the victims, as well as high throughput historical DNA analysis on the skulls to infer the kinship degrees among the victims via genetic relatedness analyses. We also conducted targeted anthropological analysis to successfully complete the identification of all Sarakina victims. We demonstrate that our methodological approach constitutes a potentially highly informative forensic tool to identify war victims. It can hence be applied to analogous studies on degraded DNA, thus, paving the path for systematic war victim identification in Greece and beyond.

War is Herstory Home Front Women in the Poetry of Adnan Al-Sayegh

Woman characters abound in the poetry of the Iraqi poet, Adnan Al-Sayegh who is influenced, in his presentation of her, by three mainfactors, namely, war, political system, and patriarchal norms. Al-Sayegh’s women are essentially of four types: the mother, thelover/sweetheart, the war victim, and the working class woman.Drawing on Bamberg’s concept of ‘small stories,’ this paper is anattempt at exploring those women’s small and underrepresented storieswhich tell a lot about social, political, and economic conditions in Iraq.The paper argues that although small and unexciting, these stories doshed light on the social status and ordeals of women in Iraq. Women’s‘small stories’ are then analyzed in a number of poems that best reflectthe characteristics of each type of woman. It concludes that thesewomen’s stories which take place at home fronts are no less significantthan the stories narrated by men. Women’s stories ultimately revealpart of the unofficial and often unspoken of history of war in Iraq.

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

African Vernacular Symbols of Black Intersex Children in Sinethemba Ngubane's Installations (2007-2016)

Remnants of Pain and Suffering

During an archaeology of garbage project in the city of Tehran in 2018, a garbage bag was documented that presented objects signifying pain and illness. The study of this material evidence indicated that the garbage was from a patient who was hospitalized at home, but a written document also present in the same garbage bag provided further context that led us to revise our initial interpretation. The document showed that these objects were linked not just to a disabled person, but to a victim of the Iran–Iraq War. The violence of war thus extends through time and affects all aspects of everyday life, changing its victims forever. The evidence for this includes waste and garbage. In this paper, we attempt to narrate the story of the pain and suffering of a war victim based on his garbage, a man whose life has been changed forever by war.

Twice A Minority: Education and Life Experiences of War Victim Refugee Youth with Developmental Disabilities and those of Their Parents in Türkiye

According to 2022 data, approximately 4 million Syrians live in Türkiye, and it is known that %24.7 of them have various disabilities. Recent research has shown that the developmental disability is one of the most common types of disability among Syrian refugees in Türkiye. We aimed to investigate the lives of refugees with developmental disabilities, who are twice a minority. Among the Syrian refugees in Türkiye, 24.7% are individuals with special needs. It was reported that developmental disabilities and post-traumatic stress disorder are the most prevalent diagnoses across the refugees. The study aims to investigate the current status and educational needs of Syrian refugees with developmental disabilities and their parents, who live in refugee camps in Türkiye with a specific emphasis on their education life. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with young refugees with developmental disabilities and their parents in the study conducted with a phenomenological approach. The content analysis conducted on the study data revealed that these individuals migrated to Türkiye due to the Syrian war, and they did not want to return to their home country. Since they lived in camps in Türkiye, they have been isolated from social life. Participants stated that they mostly required special education and health facilities and socialization. The identified problems were analyzed, and certain recommendations are presented based on the study findings.

Analysis of an ancestry using cremated old human remains from the Korean War victims

Analysis of DNA from burnt bone fragment is the very hard work for the human identification in forensic casework. In general, cremated bone with an artificial damage is more difficult to get an intact DNA than a singed one because of the chemical and biological drastic changes such as protein denaturation and destruction. In this study, we pursue the best technical approach for the minimal damage and the contamination of DNA from other factors in the preconditioning and the extraction process based on over 70 years old Korean War victim skeletal that was burnt and buried in Korean Peninsula. First of all, we removed the pollutant and the dust from the burnt bones using dental instruments, and then incubated with EDTA buffer at 25 ℃ to remove inhibitors such as calcium and mineral. In order to compare the DNA preservation ability between a pellet and a supernatant, samples are repeatedly tested to collect washed EDTA buffer several times to separate. Each of isolated materials is secondly cleaned with the organic extraction method using phenol and analyzed mtDNA sequence with the in-house method for the ancestry assay. The better discrimination ability was appeared in the supernatant than the pellet. Nevertheless, many of the forensic geneticists use a powdering method for getting more DNA, we applied EDTA buffer in the preconditioning step to eliminate every contamination. As a result, the contamination factor was efficiently removed and the ancestry was estimated as per the written information. Consequently, cremated bone is identified to belong in the D4 mtDNA haplogroup which is commonly reported in ethnic groups in Asia especially Korea. This is a preliminary study of a human identification over an ancestry analysis to give information against a mass disaster in a future. Through a higher process optimization and better analytical methods toward more remains, which are genetically difficult to analyze, will support to examine the identity of the post cremated remains.

An Analysis of Researches Related to War Victim Children

The research aims to analyze research related to children who are war victims. In the research, the literature review model is used. Data are collected from the article on the internet sites included of Google scholar, Springer. The obtained studies were evaluated according to the gender of the researchers, the research methods used, the data collection techniques, the study groups, the results of the studies, and their recommendations. According to the results of the research, the researchers’ genders distribution is equal. According of research methods the qualitative researches add up to the quantitative studies. The majority of the data collection tools in the researches are a literature review, and the majority of the study groups are literature reviews. According to the analysis of the results of the inspected studies, the war has an impact on post-traumatic stress disorder, psychological health, and physical conditions (deprivation of education, hunger, lack of clothing). According to the analysis of the recommendations of the inspected research, these are reached the end of recommendations such as providing psychological support (rehabilitation programs, counseling, e-treatments), universally fulfilling the physical and emotional (education, community education, social mobilization) necessities of children who are victims of war, more effective granting of child's rights for children who are victims of war, developing appropriate treatment programs for child victims of war, announcing and understanding the experiences of war victims. Keywords: war, victim, child, war victims DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/12-20-06 Publication date: October 31 st 2022

The Nation’s Gratitude: World War I and Citizenship Rights in Interwar Romania by Maria Bucur

Reviewed by: The Nation’s Gratitude: World War I and Citizenship Rights in Interwar Romania by Maria Bucur Ștefan Cristian Ionescu Bucur, Maria. The Nation’s Gratitude: World War I and Citizenship Rights in Interwar Romania. Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe. Routledge, Abingdon and New York, 2022. viii + 237 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £120.00; £33.29 (e-book). The whereabouts of veterans in post-World War One (hereafter, WWI) Europe has triggered numerous academic inquiries, exploring their physical and psychological injuries, their participation in radical politics, their economic-social problems and the welfare programmes aimed at soothing their sufferings. Until now, Romania lacked a comprehensive study with just a few scholars addressing only some aspects of the topic in passing. The country deserves more attention, however, as it suffered one of the highest ratios of casualties amongst all combatants. Relying on a wealth of archival and published sources — official documents, citizens’ and organizations’ petitions and reports, minutes of parliament and government meetings, legislation and the press — Maria Bucur’s book examines the story of Romania’s national office of veterans, widows and orphans (known by its acronym, IOVR), private NGOs and individual beneficiaries as a lens to elucidate how citizenship functioned for different categories of inhabitants and how a form of welfare state gradually emerged during the interwar years. This story is crucially important for understanding Romania’s recent history and its fragile liberal democratic traditions. War veterans, widows and orphans represented a significant section of local society — estimated at over 2 million people out of a population of 16 million (12 per cent) after WWI — and the status of this category of citizens was at the core of numerous public debates on national identity and democracy, welfare policies and citizens’ activism that took place during the interwar decades. As Bucur shows, Romania’s veterans, widows and orphans, who were grouped in more than 250 organizations, were not able to establish a coherent community and remained divided based on class, gender, geographical location, religious and political affiliation. The finding about the veterans’ different political choices contributes to a broader historiography on WWI veterans and the emergence of right-wing radicalism: based on the available evidence, Bucur suggests that the majority of veterans did not join the fascist movements/parties of Romania, unlike most previous assumptions. Bucur convincingly argues that the IOVR legislation and its implementation represented the state’s systematic endeavour to build, centralize and control a welfare policy aiming to help veterans, widows and orphans after WWI. One of the most generous policies in interwar Europe, at least on paper, it eventually become much more restrictive under the influence of ethno-nationalism and antisemitism in 1938. Bucur reveals how the Romanian authorities proved quite ineffective in their centralizing attempts to implement the welfare policy and how they kept the programme underfunded. This problem was partially [End Page 580] resolved by the activity of some private NGOs, which proved more efficient in helping those impacted by the war, even though these organizations struggled with insufficient funding. A major contribution of the book is the thorough intersectional examination of how the categories of gender and disability were framed into IOVR laws and bureaucratic practices, and how they contributed to a change in traditional gender norms and assumptions about able-bodiedness in local society. Chapter one is crucial for understanding the complicated legal framework that regulated the veterans’ rights, as well as the law makers’ debates on and justifications of that legislation. Bucur provides a sophisticated analysis of the numerous laws — over fifty in two decades — looking at how the concepts of class, gender, ethnicity, religion and able-bodiedness intersected, and what they revealed about the local political elites’ perspective on the local community, the citizens and their merits. The initial, almost complete political consensus on improving the lives of war veterans, widows and orphans translated into adopting what seemed to be a very inclusive law for that time, encompassing broad definitions about who was a war victim and who deserved the nation’s gratitude. The law did not discriminate against people of different ethnicities, religions, or wartime army affiliation. Subsequent political instability and beneficiaries’ protests and...

Surviving Fifty Years With Shrapnel Within the Brain

AimsTraumatic brain injury during the war by shrapnel or bullet is lethal and life-threatening. The mortality rate from traumatic brain injury is more than 90%. Mrs. N (70) of Bangladesh is an exceptional and one of the luckiest women of the world. She is a war victim and has been living with shrapnel within her brain for the last 50 years.MethodsAccording to the patient attendant, half a century ago, during the Liberation War of Bangladesh, one shell accidentally exploded in their backyard. Unfortunately, a few pieces of shrapnel penetrated her arm, leg and right side of the head. She lost her consciousness and immediately treated at war hospital as per level best. She forgets details of her treatment and has no treatment records. Last 50 years, she has been surviving with movement difficulties, weaknesses of the upper and lower limbs and occasional convulsions. Her sufferings have intensified day by day. Last few years she has been experiencing headaches, dizziness, vomiting and forgetfulness. Two months back, she drank some insecticide mistakenly. She also suffering insomnia and she often cried out from deep sleep. She complains about hearing unknown voices. The voices were talking about her. She also started to suspect her family members. She claims that her family members were conspiring to kill her. She has history of convulsions three times in the last 50 years, which were generalized and tonic clonic in nature. She didn't take any medication for convulsion. As her suspicion, irrelevant talk and oddity in behavior worsened, her family members took her to me for treatment. Considering her past traumatic brain injury, an X-ray skull was advised. Surprisingly, it showed a metallic foreign body (shrapnel) within her skull. Furthermore, a CT scan of the brain was done, and it showed there was an irregular bony gap at right parietal area, a shrapnel at right frontal area with extensive encephalomalacic Porencephaly communicating with lateral ventricle. Her thyroid and liver function are normal. She is non-diabetic, non-hypertensive. She was advised to take risperidone 2 mg daily at night. With this low dose antipsychotic medication her psychosis controlled.ResultsSurviving with shrapnel within the brain followed by traumatic brain injury is very much rare. Shrapnel gradually damages the brain parenchyma and creates a large porencephaly.ConclusionTraumatic brain injury by bullet or shrapnel is always fatal. It is very much rare in medical to survive fifty years with shrapnel within the brain after shrapnel injury.

Neurosurgery in perilous area; is there any role of specialized field hospital in the management of low velocity penetrating head injuries?

Back ground: Surgery for patient with penetrating head injury during war is debatable in literature. Field hospital with limited resources in war area could have a role in the management of this less devastating head injures patients. Methods: During a 6 months of Syrian civil war (October 2012- March 2013), 30 patients with low velocity penetrating head injuries was referred to a 3 different field hospitals managed by the same surgical team. The patient inclusion criteria were including Glasgow coma scale (GCS) ranged from 11 to 15, whom didn’t need for neuroscience intensive care unit (NICU) admission. Patients had laboratory and image before management decision. After surgery, the patient had short term admission before discharge and follow up at outpatient clinic. Results: The mean age for civil war victim was 26. ± 10.1and most of cases were males. All cases had penetrating metal shrapnel injuries from barrel bomb explosion. The majority of cases had GCS =15 (43.3%). Frontal lobe was the most frequent affected lobe (53.3%). The most frequent CT finding was contusion, edema and mass effects (60%). Surgery was reported in (83.3%) with no reported mortality. Surgical outcome was affected by pre hospital chronic illness P= 0.04 and, numbers of affected brain lobes by penetrating metal (P= 0.001). Conclusion: Surgical outcome of penetrating head injuries patients can be affected number of the affected brain lobes by penetrating metal and bone fragments. Field hospital in war area could be valid in the management of such patient.

War is Herstory Home Front Women in the Poetry of Adnan Al-Sayegh

Woman characters abound in the poetry of the Iraqi poet, Adnan Al-Sayegh who is influenced, in his presentation of her, by three main factors, namely, war, political system, and patriarchal norms. Al-Sayegh’s women are essentially of four types: the mother, the lover/sweetheart, the war victim, and the working class woman. Drawing on Bamberg’s concept of ‘small stories,’ this paper is an attempt at exploring those women’s small and underrepresented stories which tell a lot about social, political, and economic conditions in Iraq. The paper argues that although small and unexciting, these stories do shed light on the social status and ordeals of women in Iraq. Women’s ‘small stories’ are then analyzed in a number of poems that best reflect the characteristics of each type of woman. It concludes that these women’s stories which take place at home fronts are no less significant than the stories narrated by men. Women’s stories ultimately reveal part of the unofficial and often unspoken of history of war in Iraq.

Next generation sequencing technology in Second World War victim identification

The killings during the Second World War (WWII), with nearly 100,000 victims, is one of the greatest losses of life in Slovenia’s modern history and most of the victims are still buried in hidden mass graves and remain unidentified. Identity, ancestry, and phenotypic SNPs, as well as STR markers are already used for solving various cases with Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology. In this study, the Precision ID GlobalFiler NGS STR panel was used to identify the WWII victim that could not be identified with capillary electrophoresis (CE) analyses because limited statistical support was obtained after amplification of autosomal STRs using CE STR kits. Bones and teeth were analysed and compared to family references (nephew and niece on paternal line). Prior to DNA isolation 0.5 g of powder was decalcified. The DNA was purified in a Biorobot EZ1 device. The nuclear DNA of the samples was quantified with the PowerQuant kit. Because the recommended posterior probability (PP) of 99.9% was followed with the goal of high confidence of correct identification, the NGS STR Panel was used, and after the analysis of additional STR loci the statistical calculation showed a PP of 99.99986%, showing that a large enough number of genetic markers were analysed when identifying the skeletal remains of the aunt. PP value endorsed the hypothesis that the tooth and bone samples were from individual related to the family references rather than from unrelated individual. In presented case, NGS technology proved to be a powerful tool for increasing the number of autosomal STRs needed for identification of WWII victims when linear markers cannot be used for comparison and only distant relatives are available for analyses.

STEREOTYPING, VICTIMIZATION AND DEPOLITICIZATION IN THE REPRESENTATIONS OF SYRIAN REFUGEES

This paper studies the representational constructions of the image of Syrian refugee in newspaper photographs and discusses the processes in which the Syrian refugee is victimized, stereotyped and depoliticized through representation. It analyses Syrian refugee photographs published between 2011 and 2015 in five Turkish newspapers. Working within visual sociological and constructivist perspectives, and synthesizing content and visual analyses, the study first dwells upon the universal “ideal victim” profile mentioned in victimology studies, then reveals that the image of Syrian refugee is predominantly constructed as “victim” in the analyzed newspaper photographs. The study elaborates that refugees’ victimhood is represented through different themes of suffering, which appear around the themes of poverty, displacement, the need, and loss and pain. Then the victimization of the refugee is problematized and discussed under two main arguments. The first argument discusses that the prevalence of the victim discourse in Syrian refugee photographs is achieved through the technique of stereotyping, which reproduces the universal image of the refugee as weak and vulnerable, regardless of time and context. The second argument discusses that victimization works as a device for depoliticization, which imagines the refugee only as weak and powerless rather than a subject with political agency who produces action and results. The paper concludes that victimization and depoliticization produce a disparity between the lived experiences of the refugee (who has survived a war) and the representations of the refugee (who is a powerless war victim).

The Iraqi Child as a War Victim in Selected Poems

The Iraqi Child as a War Victim in Selected Poems

Türkiye’deki Suriyeli üniversite öğrencilerinde yılmazlık

The purpose of this research is to deeply examine the resilience in war victim immigrants based on risk and protective factors. The sample of the research, which is structured as a phenomenological study, a type of qualitative research, constitute of 5 women, 5 men and 10 university students. A semi-structured Immigrant University Students Resilience Interview Form, created by the researchers, was used as a data collection tool. According to the results, while the risk factors of the participants were mainly societal, the protective factors were mainly individual. Additionally, the risk factors are distrust in others, anger management, pessimism, financial difficulty, media effect, witnessing to death, interruption of education, social prejudice and unsupportive, new settlement, language problem, change of living space, death of family member, living apart to family. The protective factors are; social contribution, career goals, patience, self-confidence, desire for learning, grit, spirituality, financial situation, host society support, immigrant support, family members support. Furthermore, it was found that the percentage of the participants who consider themselves as happy and standing individuals which is a sign of resilience was high.

Body as weapon: the archaeology of a war victim’s narrative

ABSTRACTThe soldier's body is the most important subject of violence and destruction in war. Humans live primarily through their body in the material world, and when the body is destroyed, their whole existence is affected, both physically and non-physically. Therefore, the first locus on which we can observe the effects of war and violence is the human body, mainly soldiers. In modern wars, the soldier’s body is combined with weapons and machines of war, but is also the first target of killing whether in attack or defence. On the one hand it is targeted and killed, but on the other hand the body itself targets and kills. In warfare, bodies are trained to be the mechanism of killing and they are employed on battlefields according to the political objectives of their sovereign power. Thus, the soldier’s body becomes a weapon separated from the individual human body by the political authority.

Wounds and Words: The Traumatic Memory in Omar El Akkad’s Dystopian Novel

This paper discusses the literary portraying of personal trauma in Omar El Akkad’s dystopian novel American War. The purpose of this research is twofold:  (1) identify the way in which the traumatic memory of war victims is transmitted from the first generation to next generation and (2) understand how the narrator constructs his discourse about the future of America and the world. The method used in this research is descriptive qualitative. The researcher uses Christa Schönfelder’s theory on postmodern trauma texts. This research shows that the main narrator’s choice to positioning Sarat as a war victim, not a perpetrator of biological genocide, makes the narrative of Sarat’s traumatic memory political. It exposes that the first generation’s desire for personal narration becomes unnaratable, and that there is second/third generation’s urge for a future beyond trauma. The conclusion proves that American War contains the quest for stability out of disruptive experiences, constituting a crucial aspect of the need for narrative in the face of a dystopian future.

Cultural Heritage Protection as a Security Issue in the 21st Century: Recent Developments

Throughout history, cultural property has permanently been at risk in armed conflict as belligerents always aimed at razing to the ground or plundering the enemy’s cultural heritage. Cultural property is a war victim time and again, either by armed attack or by collateral damage. This background opens the way for new insights into research on cultural heritage protection as a security issue in the 21st century. In order to fight the root causes of heritage destruction and extremism, UNESCO is advocating strongly a comprehensive approach, using also its “soft power” across the Organization’s mandate. Thus, despite its limited resources, UNESCO is an important actor in promoting a culture of peace, justice and tolerance on a worldwide scale.

Cultures of Confinement: Health, Illness, and Madness in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Magic Mountain

Cultures of Confinement:Health, Illness, and Madness in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Magic Mountain Robert Heynen (bio) In an article on war neuroses in Weimar Germany, Jason Crouthamel recounts the story of a disabled veteran's unusual challenge to medical and political authority in the aftermath of World War I: At a 1921 Berlin city assembly meeting, witnesses testified that a psychologically-disabled war victim under the pseudonym "Dr. Franzke-Rudolph" used false papers to disguise himself as a medical doctor in order to infiltrate his pension and health-care office. Once established in the administration area of the welfare office, this individual began to "incite rebellion" and, according to the police, attempted to set up a "communist headquarters" for the revolution led by welfare recipients. Local papers reported that in his clash with police just before he was led off to an asylum, the would-be doctor declared that the health-care administrators, insurance court clerks and doctors were all "mentally ill" and he called for a new system led by war victims themselves.1 Dr. Franzke-Rudolph's direct action was an astute and nuanced piece of political theater that pointed to a number of issues facing German veterans, most notably around access to social supports. His utopian plan for setting up a "communist headquarters" highlighted the extent to which questions of social welfare, health, and illness had become politicized, with anti-psychiatry ideas influencing the broader left-wing revolutionary movements of the post-World War I period.2 And, his subsequent confinement [End Page 683] in an asylum reflected a tactic used frequently by authorities seeking to suppress those movements. The modernist and avant-garde movements of the Weimar period were shaped in turn by these complex debates around psychiatric or medical confinement, radical politics, and war. Modernists had long appropriated experiences of madness and illness, with madness in particular both celebrated as offering a primitivist access to an untrammelled aesthetic and psychic freedom, while simultaneously signifying the destabilizing and fragmenting experience of modern life.3 For many, however, the experience of war and postwar revolution highlighted the inadequacy of these often vague and apolitical perspectives. In some cases, artists and writers themselves experienced medicalized confinement directly, some as patients (the expressionist playwright Ernst Toller, for example, who was also later imprisoned for his leading role in the Bavarian Soviet Republic), others as orderlies (the expressionist painter and printmaker Conrad Felixmüller). In part because of these direct experiences, but more broadly due to the experience of the brutality of war, in movements like Dada madness and illness were increasingly politicized. As with Franzke-Rudolph, practices of confinement themselves came to be seen as part of larger oppressive capitalist and militarist social structures.4 We need to be careful about making too much of this shift, however. Even after the war a romantic notion of madness remained influential, perhaps most notably in Hans Prinzhorn's 1922 book Artistry of the Mentally Ill. Prinzhorn was a psychiatrist and art historian who worked in an asylum and collected the artworks produced by inmates. These he compared favorably with expressionism, although he insisted that inmates' art was spontaneous and unconscious, calling their work Bildnerei (image-making) in contrast to the consciously-produced Kunst (art) of artists. Artists flocked to him and his collection, but while he worked in an asylum, he had little to say about war, politics, or the institutional basis of psychiatric and medical confinement.5 What might a more politicized attention to the institutional politics of confinement, one closer to Franzke-Rudolph than Prinzhorn, bring to an understanding of the modernist fascination with madness and illness? To engage with this question, I will examine two of the most famous Weimar-era evocations of confinement, the asylum of Robert Wiene's 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and the tuberculosis sanatorium in the Swiss Alps of Thomas Mann's 1924 novel The Magic Mountain. Both struggle with the complex intersections of madness, illness, and creativity, each foregrounding the material as well as the metaphorical or allegorical dimensions of confinement. Both film and novel respond to the rise of psychiatric medicine and psychoanalysis, and the...

Intubating a nerve…

BackgroundThe gold standard in the primary and secondary treatment for a nerve gap reconstruction is still autologous nerve grafting. Over short distances, application of nerve conduits can effectively solve the problems of limited availability of donor tissue, sacrifice of a functional nerve, and possible neuroma formation of autologous nerve grafting. There are a variety of non-absorbable and absorbable nerve conduits. Method and ResultsThe 21-years old patient was a war victim in Syria and suffered a shooting trauma of the left thigh two years ago. Nerve reconstruction of the sciatic nerve with a giant nerve tube was performed 9 months after the trauma. Due to the young age of the patient we decide to conduct an exploration and possibly autologous nerve transplantation 2 years after primary surgery. Intraoperatively we found an intubation tube used as a non-bioabsorbable nerve tube including no nerval tissue. ConclusionThis case describes probably the largest nerve tube ever but it also reflects the improvisation of war surgeons under limited circumstances in order to provide a satisfactory medical care during war times.