The Afterlife of First World War Refugee Camps

During the First World War, the Imperial and Royal Ministry of the Interior built large refugee camp barracks, each for up to 30,000 war refugees coming from the frontline areas; they were fenced in with barbed-wire and had city-like facilities with modern infrastructure (electrical supply, infirmaries, churches/synagogues, schools, theatres, cinemas). In many cases, the street grids and sewer networks of today still correspond to those from the camps (Wagna, Gmünd). After 1918, a public waste disposal agency took over the sale of the camp barracks to neighbouring communities or private individuals. In many cases, residential barracks, administrative buildings and orphanages from the camps remained and have been further developed or absorbed into suburban garden cities with single-family homes in the countryside (Gmünd, Hollabrunn, Bruck/L., Mitterndorf a.F., Landegg-Pottendorf). The former refugee camp also served the Vienna community after 1918 as recreational homes for big city children and apprentices infected with tuberculosis as well as a vacation colony and a “children’s republic” for the Kinderfreunde organisation (Gmünd).