Nežider – Austro-Hungarian Camp for Serbian Prisoners 1914–1918

Authors: Isidor Đuković, Nenad Lukić
Editor in Chief: Slobodan Mandić
Year of publishing: 2017

Nežider Austro-Hungarian camp for interned civilians in the First World War was one of the biggest of that kind. It was organized within the buildings and stables of the old hussar barracks, and it was later reconstructed so that it could receive 15.000 internees. It was used primarily as a camp for interned civilians from the territory of the Kingdom of Serbia, Kingdom of Montenegro and from some parts of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy inhabited by Slavic people, Russians and Poles. In the period between 1914 and 1918 more that 17 000 internees passed through this camp. Because of poor conditions and periodical epidemic diseases about 4.800 prisoners died in the camp.

 

Book Nežider - Austro-Hungarian camp for Serbian Prisoners 1914–1918 was written in cooperation of two authors Isidor Đuković and Nenad Lukić and Historical Archives of Belgrade. It consists of two parts.

 

The first part deals with the historical background of the Nežider camp – the camp’s formation and development, organization, everyday life, deaths and burials of the internees. Historical background is supplemented by memories of the survived prisoners and data from the recent literature, first of all from the short study of Еva Maria Mannsberger and Karl Schäfer, „Das Neusiedler Internierungslager 1914–1918”(Neusiedler Jahrbuch ХI, 2008/2009) as well as from newspaper articles and available archival material.

 

Second part of the book consists of abundant material in tabular form. List of internees died from 1914 until 1918 is based entirely on archival material from the Archives of Serbia, Archives of Yugoslavia, Military Archives, and National Institute for Protection of Cultural Heritage and from one part of Sterbebuche, original books with death certificates from the camp.

 

In tabular form, it is presented:

List of citizens who died in the camp, from the Kingdom of Serbia
List of citizens who died in the camp, from the Kingdom of Serbia with incomplete data
List of citizens who died in the camp, from Kingdom of Montenegro and parts of Austro-Hungary, today Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia
List of citizens who died in the camp, from the Russian Empire, Kingdom of Romania and Principality of Albania;
List of deceased camps’ personnel;
List of citizens who died in the camp but their place of birth could not be determined;
List of citizens who died in the camp whose identity could not be determined precisely;
List of potentially dead citizens who are not listed in main sources
List of potentially dead soldiers who are not listed in main sources
List of citizens who died in the camp and are registered in the Nežider’s books but are buried on other places;
List of citizens who died in the camp but their death was not confirmed officially
Publication Nežider - Austro-Hungarian camp for Serbian Prisoners 1914–1918 represents the first attempt in our historiography to explore destiny of Serbian internees and prisoners in one Austro-Hungarian camp in the First World War. The authors tried to bring closer to the readers less familiar aspect of sufferings of Serbian people during the WWI, using our and foreign archival material and literature.
The book presentation was held in the Roman Hall of the Belgrade City Library on 26th April 2017. Author Isidor Đuković and PhD Miloš Paunović presented this publication. Another Archives’ publication was presented on this occasion – Kosta Pavlović, The London Diary 1945–1946.

 

Photographs from the book presentation

 

 

Video from book presentation