The monument to Arne Karlsson was founded in 1961 by the local community of Berg, the Lower Austrian Red Cross and the Austro-Swedish society and stands at the point where Karlsson was shot dead on 11 July 1947 by a military post of the army of occupation.
Born in Stockholm, Karlsson was a senior associate of the refugee organization “Rädda Barnen” and was given the task of serving the over 600 refugees who had fled over the border to Berg after the war. The young Swede drove into Berg with his car, in which also his wife and his child were, and mistakenly turned into today’s Preßburger Straße and drove towards the Russian occupation base. As he stood in front of the closed street and the sentry, he noticed his mistake and turned his car. The Russian soldier saw the Swedish licence plate at the car, thought of a spy and shot at the car. Farmers working in the fields nearby rushed to help, but were only able to recover the dead Arne Karlsson. Wife and child remained alive.
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