First World war Habsburg Soldiers buried in Rome

It has been four years since I became aware of a site that sheds light on the horrors of warand the long time it takes for the bereaved to learn about the fate of their loved ones. Surewe had a list of the names of men buried far from their homes, but the majority of themwere marked “unidentified”. This means that the families were never informed of the restingplace. Therefore, the first part of our project aimed to work in an international team,covering all the necessary languages from the Habsburg Monarchy, to try to identify them.Part 1 ended with us managing to identify more than two hundred of them, and wepublished a book in which we described the burial site, how it was set up, what the soldiers'last months were like (they were prisoners of war in camps in and around Rome, most ofthem died of the Spanish flu), and we also included some biographies with some familystories we were told by descendants. The book was also made accessible online:https://www.bmlv.gv.at/wissen-forschung/publikationen/publikation.php?id=1181Our important message was and is that these soldiers were much more than just names on adeath list and little coffins in the crypt. They had a life before they were called up to fight inthe First World War. And they also had families who were desperate to find out about theirfate. For us historians working in research institutions and universities, meeting descendantsand talking to them were touching moments. They often heard for the first time where theirmissing relatives were buried. Part 2 of our project, which began in summer 2025, startshere. With an enlarged research team, we want to give even more of these men back theirlife stories - to research their biographies and add them to a memorial book located in theAnima church in Rome. However, this time it will be not only us authoring the biographies,but we invite our history students, young researchers as well as the interested public tocontribute. Everybody interested to become an author might mail to:[e-mail] or contact one of our scientific commitee. 

We have a name list that already provides many research links and information we already collected.With the memorial book, visitors can browse through lives that took place throughout theHabsburg Monarchy before 1914, Jewish peasants from Galicia, and Orthodox farmers fromVojvodina, Roman Catholic craftsmen from Upper Austria and merchants from today'sSlovenia. They cover all languages and nationalities, as well as religions, but importantly,they were men of the people, not officers, or the well-educated. They are those who areoften forgotten in history. We plan to make the memorial book also available online. Part 2will end with a presentation of the memorial book in Rome.

Contact: Priv.-Doz. Dr. Tamara Scheer * [e-mail] funded by: FWF (V-555 and 10.55776/PAT1679824) and the Pontifical Institute Santa Maria dell'Anima, Rome