Wagna refugee camp
The Wagna refugee camp (mostly just referred to as Wagna camp ) existed from 1914 to 1963 as a barracks settlement in the area of today's Wagna municipality , the development of which it significantly shaped. In line with political developments over the decades, not only refugees but also resettlers and prisoners of war of various origins were housed. At the peak of the First World War, over 21,000 people found refuge there, which at times made it the third largest city in Styria . In the short term, however, the facility also housed a teacher training institute and a Wehrmacht training camp .
First World War and the interwar period
In autumn 1914, the Imperial and Royal Interior Ministry began planning a series of large barracks settlements , as it was foreseeable that the hostilities of the First World War would lead to numerous internally displaced persons. The settlements should be far away from the war in the hinterland , but still be easily accessible from a traffic point of view. In the case of Wagna, its location near the southern runway was a major factor. Originally a camp for 6,000 people was planned, but it was quickly expanded to 10,000 places. When the camp was officially completed in December 1914, however, it already accommodated 14,449 people. The number of barracks was doubled from 25 to 50 and the infrastructure was greatly expanded. In 1915 the camp had electricity and water supply, paved roads, five large kitchens, a bakery, workshop, sewing room, childcare facilities, chapel, sick barracks, baths (to prevent epidemics) and an administrative office with affiliated better accommodation for civil servants, clinic staff, etc. the severe overcrowding, infectious diseases were a constant problem; From October to December 2015, epidemics of typhus, tuberculosis, smallpox and pneumonia claimed the deaths of 1,539 people, mostly minors.
The first wave of refugees had come from the east of the monarchy, triggered in particular by the abandonment of East Galicia by the Austrian army. By August 1915, however, most of these were sent back or resettled again. Immediately afterwards, an even larger number of refugees from Friuli and Istria were accommodated; the camp reached its maximum size with over 21,000 residents. People who could be assumed that they were not loyal enough to the Austrian monarchy were interned in the camp and were only allowed to leave it at strictly regulated times with permission. This particularly affected parts of the Italian refugees. As a result, separate areas were set up in the camp for German-Austrians, Italians and remaining refugees from Galicia, which were separated from one another by metal bars. When the supply situation deteriorated in the course of 1917, the refugees who had been interned until then were given the option to leave the camp and were encouraged to return to their destroyed homeland. This loosening was preceded by a revolt among the Italian inmates - an Austrian gendarme shot a boy from Istria in the camp. This led to discussions in the Italian public and in parliament. This then installed a high-ranking delegation (including the young Alcide de Gasperi as a participant), which campaigned for an improvement in the situation.
After the collapse of the monarchy, (German-) Austrian administrative and railway officials found refuge in the camp, who had become undesirable in the newly formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia . In the early 1920s, various parts of the camp were sold to various relief organizations for war invalids, and some barracks were converted and dismantled. In 1923 531 people lived in 36 barracks. They still make up almost 40% of the total population of Wagna municipality.
time of the nationalsocialism
After Austria was annexed in 1938, the Gauleiter Sigfried Uiberreither was commissioned to set up temporary storage facilities in Styria for around 25,000 resettlers from southern Bukovina . The Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle was supposed to fetch them from their homeland "Heim ins Reich" and, if found suitable, to use them for future German colonizations of Eastern Europe. Since the necessary transit camps had to be set up at very short notice, the Gauleitung resorted to those places where camps from the First World War had already existed and parts of the infrastructure were still available. When the first resettlers arrived in November 1940, only 25 of the 60 planned barracks were shelled and large parts of the furnishings were missing. With the help of the resettlers, the camp was provisionally completed by December.
The last resettlers had already left the camp at the end of September 1941. The barracks now housed 400 students from the Marburg teacher training college . These should be used to re-occupy the school system of Lower Styria, which was lost to Yugoslavia in 1918 , with German-speaking staff. In 1942 the teacher training institute was moved directly to Marburg / Maribor and the facility converted into a prisoner of war camp.
In September 1942 the POW camp Stalag (= main camp) XVIII B was moved from Spittal an der Drau to Wagna. At the same time, prisoners from Stalag XVIII D (Marburg / Maribor) were also brought to Wagna. However, the camp only existed for a few months and was relocated to Pupping in Upper Austria in early 1943. In August 1943, the Oflag (= officers' camp) XVIII A with 1046 captured French officers moved into the freed barracks. They remained there until the second half of 1944. There is hardly any reliable information about the conditions of these short-term camps. Towards the end of the war, due to the gradual loss of control in the Balkans, changing operational battalions of the Wehrmacht were housed in the camp in rapid succession.
post war period
At the end of the war the camp was only used again for prisoners of war. After the consolidation of the British occupation forces, however, civilians, so-called displaced persons , were accommodated there, including numerous Jews who were waiting for the transfer to Palestine. Since the camp was built in a hurry in 1940 and only as temporary accommodation for the resettlers from Bukovina, it had to be extensively renovated by the British administration. In 1951, a quarantine camp in the nearby town of Strass was closed and integrated into the Wagna camp. From then on, it functioned as a quarantine camp for all refugees who entered Austrian soil from the south-east.
In May 1948 the highest occupancy was reached with around 4500 people to be supplied, after which the number of residents slowly declined. Over 70% of the residents were single women or children under the age of 15. The camp was therefore run as a so-called “welfare camp” and therefore had more facilities such as hospitals, an orphanage and even an old people's home. Living and common rooms were still scarce, but the situation improved when the camp residents began to organize themselves into a camp committee in the mid-1950s. Efforts were made there to improve the equipment of the camp's schools and kindergartens, and a training workshop was also set up. In 1960 the camp church was officially recognized as a branch church. At that time, today's Wagna community did not have a parish itself. The football club SV Flavia Solva, founded in the camp in 1952 (named after the Roman municipality Flavia Solva below the camp site ) has won several Styrian championships. In 1956 and 1957, the number of camp residents rose again as refugees from Yugoslavia came to Austria. These had to be supplied via the existing camp infrastructure, which led to some conflicts between the newcomers and the Austrian residents, who in turn had been driven out by Yugoslavs. The conflict was defused by the construction of a second warehouse in Eisenerz, Upper Styria, and stricter requirements for recognition as a refugee.
After the mid-1950s, there was increasing public pressure to close down barracks like the one in Wagna and to place the residents in social housing. From 1956 the Wagna community planned to build houses, at that time 1,117 people were still living in 70 barracks. The camp residents themselves founded a building association in 1958 in order to organize projects independently and apply for funding from the state. Despite these and other initiatives on the part of the camp residents, the municipality of Wagna and the Province of Styria, the evacuation of all camp residents continued until 1963. The last barrack in the camp was the church before it, like some other barracks, was sold and dismantled. A barrack is now a listed building on the main street of the community.
literature
- Heimo Halbrainer: Wagna camp 1914–1963. At times the third largest city in Styria. In: Universalmuseum Joanneum (Hrsg.): Schild von Steier. Small fonts. 23/2014, Graz 2014, ISBN 9783902095534
- Paolo Malni: Fuggiaschi. Il campo profughi di Wagna 1915-18. Edizioni del Consorzio Culturale del Monfalconese, Monfalcone 1998.
Web links
- Multimedia processing of various aspects by TU Graz students.
- Camp newspaper from 1915 to 1918 , digitized by the Austrian National Library.
- Wagna camp 1914-1963 - Flavia Solva and Wagna. Two special places. Information on the exhibition at the Landesmuseum Joanneum 2014–2016
- Contribution by the State of Styria with interviews with historians and contemporary witnesses.
- Italian-language website about the camp during the First World War.
Individual evidence
- ↑ https://iam.tugraz.at/akk/projekte/mujanic_wojciechowska/ Retrieved on July 11, 2018
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 26f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 31
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 37
- ↑ Malni 1998, 35
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 50f.
- ^ Parliamentary report de Gasperis
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 60f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 62f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 67f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 73f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 77f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 80
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 87f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 92f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 96f.
- ↑ https://iam.tugraz.at/akk/projekte/brandauer/info/ Retrieved on July 11, 2018
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 116f.
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 121
- ↑ Halbrainer 2014, 127
Coordinates: 46 ° 46 ′ 4.5 ″ N , 15 ° 33 ′ 25.6 ″ E