Location
The cemetery is located in a beech forest on the northern slopes of the KobyĹa hill (603 m above sea level) on the edge of the Island Beskids and the WiĹnickie Foothills. A forest road leads to it from the Kucki estate belonging to Rajbrot. It goes away from the last buildings located near the forest. This place is indicated by an information board. The distance from this place to the cemetery is about 700 m. The cemetery is located at an altitude of approx. 560 m above sea level. On its eastern side a stream flows out to Uszwica. In the forest surrounding the cemetery, you can also find outlines of shooting trenches and machine gun emplacements. [source: Wikipedia, 2166455]
History
Buried here are the soldiers of the Russian, Austrian-Hungarian and German armies, who died fighting in the surrounding areas on December 7-12, 1914 during the Limanowa-Pawanska operation. The Russians occupied Rajbrot and the surrounding areas as early as November 11, 1914. The contemporary commentators write: "The Muslims appear, who, like a swarm, occupy almost all houses." In the surrounding hills they created fortified defensive positions. The hill of KobyĹa was of great strategic importance and extremely fierce buoys were fought for it; it passed from hand to hand six times [ . A total of 241 soldiers were buried in this cemetery in 41 collective and 20 individual graves, including: * 96 Austro-Hungarian army soldiers from the 24th Infantry Regiment; * 28 soldiers of the German army from 217, 218 and 219 of the Prussian reserve infantry regiment and 19 reserve rifle battalion; * 117 soldiers of the Russian army. 34 soldiers were identified. [source: Wikipedia, 2166455]]
Description of the cemetery
The cemetery was made on a rectangular plan on a fairly steep slope. For this reason, the area of the cemetery was leveled, making terraces on which tombstones were made in rows. From the west side, the cemetery is surrounded by a wall made of hewn stone, the remaining sides of the fence are made of concrete foundation and stone, stone posts, formerly connected with thick iron pipes, now wooden perches. Entrance to the cemetery from the east through a low gate. The main decorative element is a stone wall located in the south-west corner of the fence with an inscription board and a concrete bench. The inscription on the board: In reiner Hohe Duft und Glanz Umgrunt von der freien Berge Kranz, Mit dem feinde geschart, den nieangen, Sind des Kaisers Soldaten zur Ruh gegangen. Hans Hauptman. Concrete steles with an array of inscriptions or iron crosses on concrete pedestals have been placed on the graves. Both steles and crosses have tin or cast-iron inscription plates. On the graves of the soldiers of the Austrian and German armies, Latin crosses were placed, on the graves of Russian soldiers, the Lorraine crosses. [source: Wikipedia, 2166455]
The fate of the cemetery
In 1915, as soon as the front moved further east, the Austrians began to build a cemetery. The designer, like other cemeteries in this area, was Franz Stark. In the interwar period, the cemetery was still in good condition as new. After World War II, the importance of the cemetery in the awareness of the society and the then authorities decreased, because new, more recent cemeteries and dramatic stories of the new war came. The cemetery was naturally destroyed by weather and vegetation factors. It was only from the 1990s that people started to take care of it and necessary repairs were carried out. At the cemetery there was an alley with red oaks. They were cut down because they were destroying the cemetery. The iron pipes of the fence were replaced with wooden poles, a new one was put in place of the broken inscription board. On the Day of the Dead school youth lights candles in the cemetery, and annually in October organizes a rally along the route of World War I cemeteries around Ĺťegociny. In the municipality of Ĺťegocina this action was initiated by Tadeusz Olszewski, a middle school teacher. [source: Wikipedia, 2166455]
