Krypta-Projekt:
The 450 Austro-Hungarian First World War Soldiers buried in the Roman-Catholic Church Santa Maria dell'Anima in Rome
Projektleitung: Tamara Scheer
Scientific Collaborators: Serhiy Choliy (National Technical University of Ukraine, Kyiv) * Ljiljana Dobrovšak (Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar, Zagreb) * Gabriela Dudeková Kováčová (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava) * Catherine Horel (CETOBAC, Paris) * Jiří Hutečka (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic) * Juhász Balázs (ELTE Budapest) * Vlad Popovici (Babeș-Bolyai University Cluj-Napoca, Romania) * Kamil Ruszała (Jagiellonian University Krakow) * Rok Stergar (University of Ljubljana) * Petra Svoljšak (Slovenian Academy of Sciences) * Goran Vasin (University of Novi Sad)
It has been four years since I became aware of a site that sheds light on the horrors of war
and the long time it takes for the bereaved to learn about the fate of their loved ones. Sure
we had a list of the names of men buried far from their homes, but the majority of them
were marked “unidentified”. This means that the families were never informed of the resting
place. 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 we
published 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 of
them died of the Spanish flu), and we also included some biographies with some family
stories we were told by descendants.
Our important message was and is that these soldiers were much more than just names on a
death list and little coffins in the crypt. They had a life before they were called up to fight in
the First World War. And they also had families who were desperate to find out about their
fate. For us historians working in research institutions and universities, meeting descendants
and talking to them were touching moments. They often heard for the first time where their
missing relatives were buried. Part 2 of our project, which began in summer 2025, starts
here. With an enlarged research team, we want to give even more of these men back their
life stories - to research their biographies and add them to a memorial book located in the
Anima 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 to
contribute.
Find a pdf list with the names of the soldiers here: Memorial Book of the 450 First World War Habsburg soldiers buried in Rome
News, Lectures, Presentation and Publications
Publication (open access):
Where have all the young men gone? The 460 Austro-Hungarian Soldiers from First World War buried in the Crypt of Santa Maria dell’Anima in Rome
Video with Tamara Scheer:
Tour to the Crypt of Austro-Hungarian First World War Soldiers in Rome
Video Tour with Vlad Popovici:
The 450 Austro Hungarian Soldiers buried in Rome
Article (open access):
Pa vendarle niso bili nemški bojevniki Aloisa Hudala Grobnica 450 avstro-ogrskih vojnih ujetnikov iz 1. svetovne vojne v cerkvi Santa Maria dell'Anima v Rimu
Interview (Radio Vatikan): Rom: Weltkriegs-Soldaten in deutschsprachiger Kirche werden identifiziert
