Csernus Lukács - Triff Zsigmond: The Cemeteries of Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

Section for Turkish soldiers killed in World War I

cemetery. After the 1950s the Ministry of Defence relinquished its exclusive right to this cemetery, waiving all responsibility for maintaining the graveyard, and with this the elimination of the military graves commenced. This constituted a violation of the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit the elimination of the graves of the war dead; when their remains are moved or cremated, they must remain identifiable. Today only the surviving monuments serve as a reminder of the existence of the military cemetery. In Section 1 is the carefully maintained memorial park of the Italian soldiers killed in World War I. In the middle of the circular area surrounded by what once consisted of Sections 3, 4, 5 and 6, there used to stand a work of sculptor Ferenc Márton and architect Ernő Foerk called “Heroes’ Altar", unveiled in 1933, but removed after the war. This has been replaced by the statue of a Hungarian soldier by Jenő Frim Körmendi, which originally stood in Section 2, with the names of the war dead buried there listed on its pedestal. The “Heroes’ Bell” by master bell-founder László Szlezák (buried in Section 114) was installed during a large ceremony on All Souls’ Day in 1937, but disappeared in 1945. In Section 7, Eva Lőte’s badly damaged memorial raised in 1942 dedicated to “Hungarian Soldiers Killed in War and Buried in Foreign Lands” is almost completely hidden. About a thousand Hungarian soldiers killed during the siege of Budapest are buried in Section 3; their remains were brought here from public spaces or from the Gyáli út Military Hospital. Károly Gerenday’s statue of a soldier in mourning erected “In Memory of Ninety Unknown Soldiers Killed in World War 1” used to be in the territory

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