Memorial for the Deportation of the Carinthian Slovenes at the Klagenfurt Ebenthal/Žrelec Railway Station

From the Klagenfurt Ebenthal/Žrelec train station, the National Socialists deported nearly 1,000 Carinthian Slovenes to various camps of the Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle, where they were forced to perform compulsory labor. Their families had previously been taken home without prior warning and detained in the nearby collection camp on Ebentaler Straße. The National Socialists had planned their forced resettlement to the east, intending to settle German-speaking Kanaltaler on their farms in southern Carinthia. Far from all of the deported Carinthian Slovenes survived, and only a small number returned to Carinthia after liberation in May 1945. The city of Klagenfurt resisted for a long time against remembering this deportation, so that a memorial was erected in Radsberg/Radiše in 1996. It was only in 2012 that a memorial could be unveiled at the Klagenfurt Ebenthal/Žrelec train station. This consists of three bronze stelae by the Carinthian Slovenian artist Valentin Oman. A few meters away from the stelae is a trilingual information board.