In the earliers phases of the war, the dead of the Dolomites Front were buried in small cemeteries created not far from the frontline. Already after a few months, however, their number had increased so much that it was decided to create larger cemeteries in the nearby valleys.
Vigo di Fassa (Vich in Ladin language), a village not far from the Marmolada Group frontline, was selected in 1915 to “house” one cemetery for Austro-Hungarian fallen (the village was, back then, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) from the Marmolada-Alpe Lusia sector of the front. The cemetery, designed by Prof. Sachs, was built outside the village; the workforce was composed of men of the 179th Infantry Brigade and a large number of Russian prisoners captured on the Eastern Front.
By late 1917, when the battle of Caporetto and the retreat of the Italian troops to the Piave River and Mount Grappa ended the fighting in the Dolomites, 318 men were buried in this cemetery.
In 1931, 43 of the dead were exhumed and returned to their hometowns, and in 1942, after the elimination of the Predazzo War Cemetery, 388 war dead from that cemetery were reburied in Vigo di Fassa. Today, 663 men rest in this cemetery.
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| Gravestone commemorating six Austro-Hungarian soldiers killed on the Costabella Group on 5 March 1917. |
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| Here lies soldier Franz Kafka. |
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