Memorial for expelled Danube Swabians at the Municipal Cemetery

In the southern part of the Salzburg Municipal Cemetery there has been since 2016 a memorial site for expelled Donauschwaben and -schwäbinnen. The narrative marble ensemble, created by the Banat-born sculptor Walter Andreas Kirchner, born in 1941, illustrates the suffering of the German-speaking minority who emigrated to the Kingdom of Hungary between approximately 1700 and 1850. After World War I and the reorganization of Europe, they were divided among Hungary, Romania and Yugoslavia. Many Donauschwaben served in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. Shortly before the end of World War II, numerous Donauschwäbische families fled to the “German Reich” and found a new home also in Salzburg. Those remaining in the territories of Eastern Europe were dispossessed, deprived of their rights and partly deported to the Soviet Union. Alone in Yugoslavia, over 100,000 Donauschwaben and -schwäbinnen were interned in camps; roughly half of them died. Since December 1st, 2016, this fate is commemorated by the site at the Municipal Cemetery.