Defiled grave monuments

In a statement in June 1945, the Carinthian provincial government recognised the "great merit earned by the Slovenian population of Carinthia in the fight against the National Socialist regime". Some parts of the population, however, disagreed. In 1947, shortly after it had been inaugurated, the first acts of vandalism against the grave monument at St. Ruprecht cemetery near Völkermarkt occurred. More would follow. In a reaction to the plebiscite celebrations of the majority population in 1970, held in an imposing and nationally oriented manner, the Slovenian-speaking population refocussed actively on its successful resistance against the Nazi regime and began to renovate its partisans’ monuments. Numerous assaults were the result. The grave monument in Ebenthal alone was defiled three times after its inauguration in June 1971 and eventually even had to be rebuilt entirely.

After the Ferlach cemetery had been rebuilt, the Association of Carinthian Partisans erected its own memorial on this cemetery in 1959, to commemorate all fighters for a free Austria. In 1972, only a few days after some of the bilingual place-name signs, overdue since 1955, had been erected under Governor Sima, this memorial, too, fell victim to vandalism. In 1973, the grave monument in Köttmansdorf was smeared with paint. In all of these cases, no one was held responsible.