The German war cemetery at the municipal cemetery in Zborov contains the remains of 1,194 victims of the Second World War.
Description of the cemetery
The area is divided into four burial plots. A hedge separates the military cemetery from the civilian cemetery. Granite crosses on the graves immortalize the names and dates of three of the dead on each side. The high cross with memorial stone is the focal point of the site. From there, visitors can enjoy a sweeping view over the cemetery, the village and the foothills of the Beskid mountain range.
A special feature is a wooden bell tower in the entrance area with aluminum name plaques for the unrecovered dead and for those resting among the unknown. There is also a list box near the bell tower with a register of names and visitors.
Burial
Most of the military graves laid out during the Second World War have been preserved in the municipal cemetery in Zborov. The reburial work ended in 1997 and the last crosses and five name plaques were moved in the fall of 1999. At the end of 2014, the military cemetery was occupied by 1,194 war dead.
History
It is estimated that 178,000 people lost their lives in the Second World War in the former Czechoslovakia; 114,000 of these war dead are registered by name. The known grave sites are located in around 5,200 places; there are graves with more than 50 dead in 240 places. Approximately 35,000 war dead are believed to have died on the territory of today's Slovak Republic. The Volksbund's work began in 1990 in the east of what was then Czechoslovakia. The first collective cemetery was inaugurated in Zborov in 1992. humenné and Prešov followed in 1994. The Hunkovce war cemetery was completed in 1995, the one in Važec - the largest in Slovakia - in 1998, and the cemetery in Bratislava was inaugurated in 2000. This was followed by the restoration and consolidation of cemeteries from the First World War. Today, around 16,000 German soldiers are buried in six Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. cemeteries in what is now the Slovak Republic
The legal basis for the work of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge e. V. was initially the German-Czechoslovak Neighborhood Treaty of February 27, 1992. On March 2, 1999, the Federal Republic of Germany and the Slovak Republic concluded a war graves agreement, which came into force on August 12, 2000.
The expansion of the war cemetery in Zborov began in 1991 with the exhumation of the dead buried there. The subsequent reorganization of the cemetery made it possible to create additional areas for more graves. The site was opened to the public on September 19, 1993.
Special feature
In Zborov, good cooperation with the local administration made it possible to establish the first military cemetery in the Slovak Federation, the former ČSFR.
