Memorial for Soviet Prisoners of War

On 22 June 2017, a memorial for Soviet prisoners of war was erected in the Gräbergruppe 18 at the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna-Simmering. The memorial is located on a mass grave in which approximately 200 Soviet prisoners of war are buried. Austrian and Russian archivists were able to identify the names of 183 deceased during their research. Until now, they had been considered missing in action. The patrons of the memorial were the Russian Federation and the Military Historical Society of Russia. The unveiling of the memorial took place on the anniversary of the invasion of the German Wehrmacht into the Soviet Union, which in Russia is commemorated as "Day of Mourning." The memorial stone was manufactured in Russia and transported to Vienna. Soviet prisoners of war died in large numbers in Vienna due to infectious diseases and lack of supplies. At the unveiling, the Russian ambassador to Austria, Dmitri Ljubinskij, the heads of the diplomatic missions of Belarus and Armenia, representatives of the embassies of other post-Soviet states, and also Elisabeth Sleha, a representative of the Ministry of the Interior of the Republic of Austria, participated.