Folia Historica 34. (Budapest, 2019)

I. TANULMÁNYOK - Miklós Tamás: Első világháborús hadifogolytábor Esztergom-Kenyérmezőn

meg és tették rendbe Négyesi Lajos hadtörténész vezetésével.94 A temető ünnepélyes újraavatására 2009. július 1-jén került sor, amelyen Oroszország, Olaszország, Románia és Szerbia képviselői is megjelentek. 2015. február 17-én, Tokodon állítottak emlékművet az ott tömegsírba temetett hadifoglyok emlékére.

WORLD WAR I PRISONER OF WAR CAMP IN ESZTERGOM-KENYERMEZŐ

Summary

The Austro-Hungarian Monarchy was prepared neither for a long-lasting war nor for the reception of masses of enemy soldiers in captivity. The first prisoner of war camps were built in military facilities such as barracks, forts, and training camps. At the beginning of the war the Austro-Hungarian troops took Russian and Serbian prisoners of war, therefore, when establishing the first camps, an important factor was to reduce the chance of escape and to limit the possibility of contact with the Slav populace of the empire. Thus, in August 1914, at first Russian, then later Serbian prisoners of war arrived at Kenyérmező, near Esztergom, where a military training camp was in operation before the war.

In the initial period, the camp had deplorable conditions: in the absence of sufficient accommodation, the prisoners literally slept on the bare ground by the thousands and the hygienic facilities were insufficent. The population of the camp that was originally designed to accomodate 6,000 people soon doubled, and by September 8, there were already 203 officers and 21,441 military prisoners in Kenyérmező. The fact that Kenyérmező operated not just as a prisoner of war camp but also as a reception camp, meaning that the captives on the front were first transported and registered here, also contributed to the large number of people in the camp. The prisoners of war went through the medical examinations here, then they were either placed in the camp or transferred to other camps.

In September 1914, a cholera epidemic broke out in the POW camp. At the order of the Minister of the Interior, the sub-prefect had arranged for the patients to be transferred to Tokod and those who were in contact with them to an empty miners' housing site at Ebszőny. However, it was difficult to combat the epidemic because at the beginning neither a morgue nor a cemetery for the burial of the dead were available.

During the winter, prisoners were accommodated in barracks excavated in the ground, which has greatly improved their living conditions. By November 5,20,000 prisoners were accommodated in 40 buildings with heating. Unttl 14 December 1914, a total of 1526 cholera cases and 715 deaths were reported from the Kenyérmező POW camp.

In the spring of 1915, a typhus epidemic broke out among the inhabitants of the underground barracks. The medical director of the prison camp, dr. János Fonyó, a gynecologist transferred here from Budapest, deserves the credit of stopping the spread of the epidemic. Fonyó pointed out the role of the body lice as a mediator in spreading typhus. The most important thing in order to prevent the epidemic is therefore delousing and the

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A temető feltárásáról bővebben Négyesi Lajos: Első világháborús hadisírok felkutatása. In: Hőseink nyomában. Tanulmánykötet a hadisírok kutatásáról. Szerk.: Tóth Zsolt. Bp., 2013. 65-85.

65-73.

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