Villagers return to their roots for All Saints’ Day

ROSE BARRACKS, Germany - Each Sunday after All Saints Day, Rose Barracks opens its gates to families whose ancestors used to live in Langenbruck and Haag, towns that were evacuated during the expansion of the Grafenwoehr training area in 1937 and 1938.

During the All Saints Day event, the families get the chance to clean and take care of the graves of their loved ones they had to leave behind.

Every year a group of 80 to 100 citizens from the Vilseck and Grafenwoehr surrounding communities come to join the event. This year more people joined. Here, a special thank you goes out to Peter Stuempfel, who volunteered within minutes to drive a second bus for the event to ensure that all eventgoers could participate in the blessing of the graves.

The military training area was established in 1907 by the Kingdom of Bavaria to train troops for the III Royal Bavarian Corps, forcing about 230 people to leave their homes.

Later, in 1937 and 1938, the Wehrmacht underwent a major expansion from 96 to 230 square kilometers (37 to 89 square miles), evicting more than 3,500 people from their villages, including Langenbruck (now Rose Barracks near Vilseck) and Haag (within the Grafenwoehr Training Area).

After the World War II, the U.S. Army took over the military training area. The graveyards in those two towns have endured.

While both cemeteries are normally not available for visiting due their location within the Grafenwoehr Training Area, the Sunday after All Saints Day, a major Catholic holiday dedicated to prayer and memory of the dead Nov. 1, the Vilseck military community opens their gates to give families the opportunity to take care of the graves of their ancestors.

This annual event has been offered since 1991, when both the Langenbruck and Haag cemeteries were first repaired. Since then, the German Bundeswehr has been taking care of the Haag cemetery and the Directorate of Public Works has been taking care of the Langenbruck cemetery.

This year was special because four special guests joint the event.

Elfriede Schiessl who was born in Haag December 1937. The two Zeilmanns, Paul and Adolf who were born there in 1935 and1936. And the last person born in Haag before the relocation, Ludwig Walter, who was born there in 1938.

Walter moved away from Vilseck in the 1970s and joined the event with his children and grandchildren. They traveled from Munich and Wuerzburg. As a reminder of his roots and to thank him for joining the event, Vilseck mayor Hans-Martin Schertl gifted him a crest of Vilseck.

"I've been here a few times before with dear old Haagers, many of whom I no longer knew," Walter said. "And today we have met Haager people who are much older than me. We were very pleased to see them again after such a long time."

"You can't understand what it's like to lose your home," he continued. "It's very, very bad. It always gets to you because you've lost everyone. The money issue was less bad. But the people were scattered all over the world. And so few were found and reunited. But this today, that's what brought many of them together again through this path to the cemetery in Haag on All Saints' Day."

Nevertheless, one important person was missing this time. Werner Stubenvoll, who had been organizing this event for decades had recently passed away.

"In the past Stubenvoll organized this event for many years, for decades," said Schertl. "This trip, this organization of the trip, the fact that it was possible for so many people to participated today and I think even the nice weather today."

Stubenvoll himself had roots to the village of Haag. His grandfather was mayor there for some time before the villagers had to relocate.

The event continued with a short information tour through Rose Barracks, passing by the housing areas Kittenberg, Gruenwald, Altneuhaus and Langenbruck which have been named after the relocated communities to remember them.

You can find out more about the Langenbruck cemetery through this short movie from 2023: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6NTqV5GDMs

You can find more pictures of the event here: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjBQxFD.

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