Place Where Nameless Are Buried

Did you ever asked yourself where unidentified people are buried? If you have, there is something seriously wrong with you :) Joke aside in Vienna there is a cemetery where the unidentified bodies are buried.

The cemetery consists of an old and the new part. Most people, buried at the old cemetery, drowned in beautiful blue Danube and were washed ashore and left unidentified, without names, nameless. From the old cemetery, that was in use for 60 years until 1900, only one grave cross remains. Around 500 people were buried here in that period, however today the location is overgrown and completely wild. Before regulation of Danube in Vienna, water vortexes drove the bodies of the drowned to this site. They were often decomposed beyond recognition and the identification was usually not possible. A regular burial was denied for them; therefore, they were buried at the site.

Being next to lively and unpredictable river, old part was often flooded and damaged. Therefore, new cemetery was opened in 1990, behind the flood protection dam. The last burial took place according to official information in 1940, however, a grave cross with the year 1953 can be found. Today, as a result of the Danube regulation, bodies are rarely washed ashore here and if that happens they are buried at the nearby central cemetery.

The Nameless cemetery is an insider tip among tourists, a sequence of the US film Before Sunrise has been shot at this cemetery.

You can find article about filming locations in Vienna for the film ''Before Sunrise'' written by Kai.