Forest cemetery (Bruneck)
The forest cemetery (also known as the heroes' cemetery ) in Bruneck in South Tyrol is a military cemetery for soldiers killed in the First and Second World Wars of various nations and denominations . It is located on the Kühbergl and is a listed building .
history
During the First World War, as a result of the nearby Dolomite front, there were two, at times three Austro-Hungarian military hospitals in the city of Bruneck. The numerous dead could soon no longer be buried in the municipal cemetery, so in 1915 the local stage command commissioned the architect Berchtold to design a military cemetery on the Kühbergl on a piece of land made available by the city. The inauguration took place on July 3, 1915, and the cemetery already had 46 graves. The cemetery and burial work was carried out by Russian and Serbian prisoners of war , who also carved numerous wooden crosses. With the inauguration of the cemetery, Mayor Josef Schifferegger took over the care of the community.
After the end of the First World War, a women's committee was founded in 1919 (1921 according to the information board on site) under the leadership of the mayor's wife, which is responsible for the maintenance of the forest cemetery to this day. A mass that was held by the fascists in 1922 in the presence of members of the Alpini Battalion Trento at the forest cemetery was an early sign of their claims to power in Bruneck. In 1932 the Italian soldiers buried here were exhumed and transferred to the new Pocol memorial near Cortina . 1938 German victims of the were then Alpenkorps from Brunico taken away and in the recently completed German war cemetery Pordoi on the Pordoijoch buried. In 1936 the cemetery chapel was built according to plans by the architect Amonn, which replaced the previously existing wooden chapel opposite the Ursuline Church , in which the funeral ceremonies for the fallen were held.
The vacant spaces in the cemetery have now been supplemented with graves of local fallen soldiers from the Second World War. In the cemetery chapel, bronze plaques were put up with the names of all the fallen soldiers from Bruneck. The Austrian Black Cross looks after a. a. also the forest cemetery in Bruneck, which is maintained all year round.
description
The only stone structures in the forest cemetery are the cemetery chapel and the tear well. Almost all graves are made of wood and are individually designed. There are 669 gravesites of Austro-Hungarian soldiers as well as graves for 103 Russian, 13 Serbian and 7 Romanian prisoners of war. The 77 Italian and 45 German soldiers originally buried here were transferred to other locations in the 1930s. All dead were buried according to their religious rites , the graves bear the symbols of the respective religions. Many Orthodox crosses or the crescent moon for the Muslim Bosniak soldiers can also be seen, as well as three Jewish tombs with the Star of David . The areas for the Muslim and Jewish graves are fenced off. At one entrance to the forest cemetery there is a large wooden gate, at another point a long wooden staircase leads to the actual cemetery area. Below the stairs is a large cemetery cross, also made of wood.
memorial
Graves
Well of tears
Orthodox cross
Muslim department
Muslim graves
Jewish graves
goal
literature
- Günter Obwegs: "... he walked by my side ..." Bruneck and its military cemetery. Bruneck, Women’s Committee Waldfriedhof Bruneck, 2005.
- Bruneck City Archives (ed.): Eternal remembrance and lasting guilt. 100 years Waldfriedhof Bruneck. Brunico 2015.
Web links
- Entry in the monument browser on the website of the South Tyrolean Monuments Office
- Bruneck City Archives
- HIWIO
Coordinates: 46 ° 47 ′ 36 " N , 11 ° 56 ′ 16.3" E