Page - 815 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

Strangers in the Homeland 815 – Mitterndorf near Grammatneusiedl in Lower Austria  – Italian South Tyrolese – Oberhollabrunn in Lower Austria  – Romanians and Ruthenians from Bukovina – Reisenberg in Lower Austria  – Poles – Steinklamm in Lower Austria  – Croats and Slovenes – Unterwaltersorf in Lower Austria  – Poles – Wagna near Leibnitz in Styria  – initially Poles, then inhabitants of the Austrian Littoral of – Italian and Slovenian nationality – Wolfsberg in Carinthia  – Ruthenians – In addition, there were camps for Galician Jews in Pohořelice (Pohrlitz), Mikulov (Nikolsburg) and Kyjov (Gaya) in Moravia.1912 The fact that Hungary continued to refuse to take in a large number of refugees under- standably created bad blood in Austria. The issue was eventually addressed in the 22nd session of the Austrian House of Representatives on 12 July 1917 and subjected to massive criticism by several Austrian Reichsrat (Imperial Assembly) deputies. Hungary naturally saw things differently. From January 1917, it became easier for the destitute refugees to leave the camps, find their own accommodation  – if they wanted to  – and take employment. It had become vital to parcel out the refugees ever more and thus minimise the burden. Salz- burg and the district of Eferding were added.1913 Nonetheless, Vienna, Graz, Brno and Prague remained blocked to any influx. These were joined by Linz.1914 The tensions also increased rather than decreased in the case of the refugees from the south-west of the Dual Monarchy, and every arrival of refugees generated defence mechanisms, which could turn into a veritable hatred. The homeless masses also aroused fear. In the Braunau refugee camp, for example, around 12,000 people were accommodated in 129 barracks, three times as many as the number of Braunau residents.1915 In Wagna near Leibnitz, as many as 30,000 people were counted.1916 Mayors, district commissioners and governors referred with generally unchanging arguments to the difficulties and dangers of camps of such size : first of all, valuable farmland was lost, the provision of foodstuffs could not be guaranteed, a risk of infec- tion existed and the ground water would be contaminated. The accommodation of the refugees in camps was nevertheless consistently regarded by the Ministry of the Interior as more advisable than their referral to quarters that had no suitable sanitary facilities, where the supply problem was practically insoluble and  – though it was not expressed in quite this way  – guarding and monitoring the refugees was impossible. Camps, by contrast, ‘offer[ed] economic and social benefits’, as the Styrian Governor argued.1917 A socio-political and educational purpose was also ascribed to the camps : here, an ‘often culturally inferior population’ was familiarised with the ‘highly-developed sanitary and