In Vienna, introduced a new edition of the Book of Remembrance

VEIN. The presentation of the second supplemented edition of the unique Book in memory of Soviet citizens who died during hostilities in Austria was held at the Russian embassy in Vienna on the funeral day of the outbreak of World War II. The author of the book, Austrian ascetic researcher Peter Siksl and his assistants, have worked on a weighty 1,200-page volume for more than 20 years.

“Today we represent the work of his life,” at the very beginning of the ceremony, Russian Ambassador to Austria Sergei Nechaev said, pointing to Siksl. The ambassador also noted that thanks to the voluminous work of the Austrian writer and his assistants with hundreds of thousands of various documents, more than 80 Soviet citizens, among whom were soldiers of the Soviet army and ordinary residents of ruined cities, who were driven into captivity for forced labor and remained forever in Austrian land, “found their names, and their burial places were established. ” Thanks to Siksl’s hard and painstaking work, their relatives now have the opportunity to find their loved ones, lost during the war years, and visit their burial sites.

Recall that this is the second edition of the Book of Memory, the first book was published five years ago. It listed the names of about 60 thousand Russian people who died in Austria. In the new edition, the names of more than 20 thousand citizens were supplemented, as well as errors and repetitions were fixed. At the end of the new Book of Remembrance, photographs and brief descriptions of 216 burial places of the Soviet military in Austria also appeared.

Peter Sixxl said that together with his team, he processed more than half a million different documents. Moreover, access to most of them, stored in the archives of the Russian Ministry of Defense in Podolsk, he received only after a personal meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which took place during his visit to Vienna in June 2014.

The second edition of the unique Book of Memory was published with the support of the Boltzmann Institute for the Study of the Consequences of the War, the Russian Embassy in Austria and the Russian Orthodox St. Nicholas Cathedral in Vienna. A total of 1 thousand copies were printed, of which 700 in Russian and 300 in German. Copies of the book will be sent to the collections of libraries and museums, and the electronic version will be available on the Internet for free.

Svetlana Korableva © Gallerix.ru