Memorial at St. Ruprecht cemetery near Völkermarkt

In autumn of 1946, the exhumed remains of over 80 men and women, most of them unidentified, were ceremonially re-interred in St. Ruprecht cemetery, under the attendance of numerous allied representatives and diplomats, as well as political functionaries of the province. These men and women of eight different nations, amongst them forced labourers, POWs and deserters, had found their deaths while offering resistance to the NS regime on the Saualm mountain pasture.

On 26 October 1947, an impressive monument was consecrated in front of the mass grave. The memorial site created was able to serve as the backdrop for the ritualised passing-on of collective remembrance. The people who commissioned the monument viewed it as an international memorial for the common anti-fascist struggle.

It took only days for the first act of vandalism to occur. In September 1953, the monument was blown up. The perpetrators were not found, and no one was held accountable. Under the state treaty of 1955, Austria would have been obliged to maintain the monument, but its rebuilding was rejected. In 1962, following arduous negotiations, a humble bowl was put on the existing pedestal. In 1968, the monument was damaged again.

In 2016, the memorial was redesigned on the initiative of the partisans’ association.