Soldatenfriedhof Frauenkirchen

The Kriegsgefangenenfriedhof in Frauenkirchen stands in Burgenland, a quiet eastern province of Austria. It holds graves of First World War prisoners from Serbia, Montenegro, Russia and Italy. The cemetery occupies the spot where the main camp once stood, the only survivor after the barracks were sold off in 1919. The site is worth a journey because it records a sombre chapter of the Great War. At its peak the camp held thirty thousand prisoners, two thirds of them working outside the wire. A typhus epidemic in the winter of 1914–15 killed more than three thousand men. Between four and six thousand bodies now lie here, many in mass graves from that time. The Italian chapel, built by prisoners themselves, and the tall stone Serbenkreuz mark the cemetery today. Visitors find a simple grassy field with rows of white crosses. The Italian chapel, a small brick building, still shows the prisoners’ handiwork. A tall Serbenkreuz rises above the graves, its surfaces carved with names and dates. The whole place is kept by the Schwarze Kreuz, which maintains the neat rows and the quiet dignity of the site.