The cemetery of the Italian prisoner of war camp in Somorja

The prisoners of war who died in the Somorja prisoner of war camp were buried in the prisoner of war cemetery established on 706 square meters of free land seized from the Somorja public cemetery as a military service, based on Act LXVIII of 1912. ; The first deceased in the prisoner of war camp was the Serbian soldier Milovan Rebranovič, born in 1888, who died on September 11, 1914. ; Over the years, the decent burial of the hundreds of dead, mainly Russians, became a growing problem for the community and the camp command, which was exacerbated by the 16,000 Italian prisoners of war in very poor health brought to the Somorja camp. The leaders of the community warned the camp commandant on several occasions that “the cemetery was already full”. Referring to the aforementioned law, the commander seized private property in 1916 and then in 1918 for the purposes of the prisoner cemetery, a total of 3,023 square meters. ; The dead were buried in separate plots according to their religion and nationality. This is how the Russian cemetery in Somorja was established, and then from 1917 the Italian cemetery. Those of the Muslim religion were initially buried in the northwestern corner of the public cemetery. Their ashes were exhumed in 1918 and reburied in the Russian cemetery. Those of the Jewish religion were buried in the Jewish cemetery established in 1910 next to the public cemetery (6 Poles, 2 Romanians, 8 Russians, and 3 of unknown nationality). ; The burial of the deceased usually took place in the presence of 40 fellow prisoners of war, with a church ceremony according to their denomination, “with combat equipment and worthy adornment”. The camp administration provided the money for the funeral. The camp gravedigger took care of the wildflowers and green ornamental plants. ; After the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic, the Prague-based war graves supervision determined, based on death registers and other documents, that 5 Czechoslovaks, 1 Austrian, 26 Romanians, 20 Yugoslavs, 2 Lithuanians, 3 Latvians, 61 Poles, 637 Russians, 1678 Italians, and 10 of unknown nationality, a total of 2443 prisoners of war, were buried in the Somorja prisoner of war cemetery. ; In the Russian cemetery, in memory of the dead, the comrades erected an imposing obelisk carved from dark granite in 1915. Under the double cross engraved in the upper part of the monument, a white marble plaque was attached with screws with the following text: "Russian ring in Bratislava. Fighter for the Fatherland and Slavs, 1927." Under the marble plaque, a 5-line Cyrillic text can be read, with its German and Hungarian versions below: "In memory of the Russian warriors who died in Somorja. The comrades." In 1941, on the orders of the Ministry of the Interior, the marble plaque was removed by the local authorities and the German and Hungarian text was scraped off. ; Between the two wars, on the commemoration of the day of the dead in the Italian cemetery and on the holiday commemorating the Italian victory, a large delegation led by the Italian consul in Bratislava laid wreaths at the Italian monument, which the comrades had erected before their return home in November 1918. After World War II, there were no wreath-laying ceremonies, and for many years the two prisoner-of-war cemeteries were silent. ; In the 1970s, the Italian cemetery began to be gradually closed down with the burial of civilian dead. After the change of regime, the Italian government, together with the city, created a new memorial site in the remaining part of the Italian cemetery. The memorial site, which is unique in Slovakia, was unveiled on November 1, 1998. The new memorial site was also visited by the President of the Italian Republic in 2002. ; Most of the Russian cemetery has not yet been reburied. The uneven ground level of the cemetery field still indicates the location of the Russian war graves. The city ensures that the cemeteries are kept clean.