Cossack cemetery in the Peggetz

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Entrance to the Cossack cemetery. On the archway it says: “The righteous will never be forgotten” (= Psalm 112.6).

The Cossack cemetery in the Peggetz is located in the Lienz district of Peggetz in Austria . It was built from 1945 in the wake of the Lienz Cossack tragedy . In 28 graves he conceals about 300 Cossacks .

history

In this cemetery are Cossacks buried in a field camp on the north bank of the Drava River in Lienz died in East Tyrol in spring 1945, was cleared as the Cossack camp by the British army (the Cossacks should be passed in Judenburg to the Red Army). There are about 300 Cossacks in 28 graves. It was about military units and their entourage who had fled from the Tito partisans from northern Yugoslavia via Italy to Austria.

The graves were laid out in June 1945. In the following years the grave sites were bordered, grave crosses (made of light-colored veined marble) were erected and the whole area was fenced off. In addition, a memorial obelisk was erected (with an Orthodox cross on the top and a crown of thorns in the middle on the western side surface). To the left and right of the memorial obelisk there are glass icon boxes on two marble table altars, in the left icon box there is an icon of Mary, in the right the icon of Pantocrator Christ. In the 1960s there were plans to build an additional chapel, but this project was abandoned for the time being. In 2015 a small wooden chapel was built in the Orthodox style.

background

The Cossacks had fought on the side of the Wehrmacht in the Balkans as an occupying force against the resistance movements and, after they had fled to Austria, were disarmed by British army stations and forcibly extradited to the Red Army in what became known as the Lienz Cossack Tragedy .

According to Harald Stadler, these events were used in Austria to readjust the history and politics of the victors and the vanquished by stylizing the British as “perpetrators”.

Commemorations

Every year on the first weekend in June, a memorial association, representatives of a soldier's comradeship and locals meet at the Cossack cemetery in the Peggetz district of Lienz to commemorate the events. The Austrian Black Cross looks after the cemetery.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Federal Monuments Office
  2. ^ Austrian Black Cross, War Graves Commission
  3. ↑ Review by Andreas Hilger in "sehepunkte" (PDF file; 58 kB)

literature

  • Martha Fingernagel-Grüll among others: The art monuments of the political district of Lienz. (= Austrian art topography. Volume 57 / Part 1). Berger, Horn 2007, ISBN 978-3-85028-446-2 , p. 235 f.
  • Armin Wilding : The Cossacks in the upper Drautal and their extradition to the Soviet Union in 1945 . Hermagoras / Mohorjeva, Klagenfurt / Ljubljana / Vienna 1999, ISBN 3-85013-636-1 , p. 111 f.
  • Josef Mackiewicz : The tragedy on the Drava: the betrayed freedom . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-548-33158-0 , pp. 234-246.
  • Nikolai Tolstoy : The Yalta Betrayed: England's Guilt Before History . Ullstein, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-548-33079-7 , pp. 243-305.
  • Adi Holzer: The Cossack Tragedy in Carinthia and East Tyrol. With a foreword and lyrical texts by Gertraud Patterer. Storm Tryk Publishing House, Bagsværd, Denmark 2007, ISBN 978-87-90170-29-5 .
  • Harald Stadler, Martin Kofler, Karl C. Berger: Escape into hopelessness. The Cossacks in East Tyrol. StudienVerlag, Innsbruck-Vienna-Bozen 2005, ISBN 3-7065-4152-1 .

Web links

Coordinates: 46 ° 49 ′ 20.6 ″  N , 12 ° 47 ′ 24.7 ″  E