A non-existent cemetery: The memory of Germans in today’s Belgrade

Abstract

This article demonstrates the post-World War II conflict of memory in Serbia, as manifested in the transformation of urban space in the post-war decades. The authors focus foremost on Zemun, a district of Belgrade which, between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, was home to a significant German population. The term ‘memoryscape’ (Sławomir Kapralski) is used to discuss changes in the urban fabric. Post-war manipulations of space, based on the ideological foundation of brotherhood and unity, and treating members of the German nation as collectively responsible for the war, resulted in the erasure of all traces of German presence in Zemun. The article describes the Zemun conflict of memory using the example of a German cemetery that was liquidated by the authorities after World War II. In the 1950s, a hospital was erected on the site of the former necropolis, and the area functions nowadays as a difficult-to-access ‘non-site of memory’ (Roma Sendyka). The tombstones from the destroyed cemetery were used to build the stairs leading to Kalwarija Park. For decades, this fact was treated as an urban legend, but its authenticity was confirmed when fragments of grave inscriptions were discovered on the slabs used in the stairs during renovation. Kalwarija Park itself constitutes a remnant of the German Catholic heritage of this area, now dominated by Orthodox residents.