Thalerhof internment camp

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Thalerhof (also transliterated as Talerhof from Cyrillic-based East Slavic texts) was a concentration camp created by the Austro-Hungarian authorities active from 1914 to 1917, in a valley in foothills of the Alps, near Graz, the main city of the province of Styria.

The Austro-Hungarian authorities imprisoned leaders of the movement among the Carpatho-Rusyns, Lemkos, and Galicians; those who recognized the Russian language as the of their own and had sympathy for the Russian Empire. Thus, the captives were forced to abandon their identity as Russians and obtain a Ukrainian identity. Captives who identified themselves as Ukrainians were freed from the camp. In 1924-1932, four issues of the Thalerhof Almanac were published in a Lviv, in which collected documentary evidence was published of the number of prisoners and the murders of peaceful Russophiles by the Austrian authorities during the war years. In 1914, out of 5,500,158 residents of Eastern Galicia, the Polish language was native to 2,114,792 inhabitants (39.8%), and "Ruthenian" (disputedly Rusyn, Ukrainian, or Russian) to 3,385,366 (58.9%). In the book “Habsburg national politics during the First World War”, authors D.A. Akhremenko (chairman of the public organization “Historical Consciousness”) and K.V. Shevchenko (professor at the Minsk State University) state that Thalerhof held over the years a total of 10,000 Russians, about 2,000 Rusyns (according to other sources up to 5,000), and about 200-250 students placed in the camp on charges of sympathy for the Russian Empire, and the Russian books of Grigory Skovoroda, Taras Shevchenko, Pushkin, Tolstoy and others. [1] In total over twenty thousand people were arrested and placed in Thalerhof camp.[2]

Until the winter of 1915, there were no barracks in Thalerhof. Prisoners slept on the ground in the open-air during both rain and frost. According to U.S. Congressman Medill McCormick, prisoners were beaten and tortured.[3] On November 9, 1914 an official report of said there were 5,700 Carpatho-Rusyns, Lemkos, and Ukrainians in Talerhof. The camp was closed by Emperor Charles I of Austria, 6 months into his reign.[4]

In the first eighteen months of its existence, three thousand[citation needed] prisoners of Thalerhof died, including the Orthodox saint Maxim Sandovich, who was martyred here (beatified August 29, 1996 by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia).

The Graz Airport is located at the camp site now.

A mass grave of Thalerhof internees is located at Feldkirchen bei Graz.

People interned in Thalerhof[]

  • Jaroslav Kacmarcyk
  • Maxim Sandovich
  • Metodyj Trochanovskij
  • Hryc Krajnyk from Ulucz
  • Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture lists the following persons: priests (Havryil Hnatyshak, Teofil’ Kachmarchyk, Dymytrii Khyliak, Vasylii Kuryllo, Mykolai Malyniak, Vasylii Mastsiukh, Tyt Myshkovskii, Ioann Polianskii, Olympii Polianskii, Roman Pryslopskii), lawyers (Iaroslav Kachmarchyk, Teofil’ Kuryllo) and cultural activists (Nikolai Hromosiak, Dymytrii Kachor, Simeon Pysh, Metodii Trokhanovskii, Dymytrii Vyslotskii).[4]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Vavrik, Vasili Romanovich (2001). ТЕРЕЗИН И ТАЛЕРГОФ. К 50-летней годовщине трагедии Галицко-Русского народа (in Russian). Moscow: Soft-izdat. Archived from the original on 2010-12-23. Retrieved 2009-06-21., originally published in 1966 by Archpriest R. N.Samelo (протоиерей Р. Н. Самело), New York
  2. ^ "The Story of Talerhof - We Should Not Forget" (reprint). Karpatska Rus'. Yonkers, NY. LXVII (16). 5 August 1994. Retrieved 24 May 2010.
  3. ^ "Terrorism in Bohemia.; Medill McCormick Gets Details of Austrian Cruelty There" (PDF). New York Times (December 16). 1917. Retrieved 2008-09-28.
  4. ^ Jump up to: a b Horbal, Bogdan. "Talerhof (German: Thalerhof)". Archived from the original on 2007-10-07. Retrieved 2008-01-20. World Academy of Carpatho-Rusyn Culture website, citing f Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture

Coordinates: 46°59′37″N 15°26′24″E / 46.9936°N 15.4400°E / 46.9936; 15.4400

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