Franja Partisan Hospital

Last updated
Franja Partisan Hospital on 15 September 2007, three days prior to the hospital's near destruction in a flood FranjaPartizanskaBolnisnica.jpg
Franja Partisan Hospital on 15 September 2007, three days prior to the hospital's near destruction in a flood

Franja Partisan Hospital (Slovene : Partizanska bolnica Franja) was a secret World War II hospital at Dolenji Novaki near Cerkno in western Slovenia. It was run by the Slovene Partisans from December 1943 until the end of the war as part of a broadly organized resistance movement against the Fascist Italian and Nazi German forces.

Contents

The wounded treated there were soldiers from both the Allied Powers and the Axis Powers. Although the Wehrmacht forces, which occupied territory that had been annexed by Italy, launched several attempts to find the hospital, it was never discovered. Today the reconstructed site exists as a museum. It has been protected as a cultural monument of national significance.

History and overview

World War II

Numerical plan of hospital buildings before the near destruction: 1. Hut for the wounded; bunker 2. Isolation unit 3. Operating hut 4. Doctors' barracks 5. X-ray unit 6. Stretcher store 7. Kitchen 8. Hut for the wounded; dining room 9. Hut for the wounded, stores and carpenters' workshop 10. Staff rooms 11. Bathroom; laundry room 12. Infirmary 13. Water tank 14. Electric plant 15. Building for burying limbs 16. Bunker over the Pasica Gorge Franja--map.png
Numerical plan of hospital buildings before the near destruction:
1. Hut for the wounded; bunker
2. Isolation unit
3. Operating hut
4. Doctors' barracks
5. X-ray unit
6. Stretcher store
7. Kitchen
8. Hut for the wounded; dining room
9. Hut for the wounded, stores and carpenters' workshop
10. Staff rooms
11. Bathroom; laundry room
12. Infirmary
13. Water tank
14. Electric plant
15. Building for burying limbs
16. Bunker over the Pasica Gorge

Built in difficult and rugged terrain in the remote Pasica Gorge in western Slovenia by Slovene Partisans, the hospital opened in December 1943 and saw continuous improvements until May 1945. The hospital was located deep inside German-occupied Europe, only a few hours from Austria and the central parts of the Third Reich. German military activity was frequent in the general region throughout the operation of the hospital. The hospital's entrance was hidden in the forest, and the hospital could only be reached by bridges.

The bridges could be retracted if the enemy was in the vicinity. In order to preserve the secrecy necessary for a clandestine hospital to operate, the patients were blindfolded during transportation to the facility. The hospital was also protected by minefields and nests of machine guns. Because the hospital is in a gorge, the many trees and camouflaged buildings provided protection against air reconnaissance.

The founder and first builder of the hospital was Viktor Volčjak, but the hospital was named after its manager and physician, Franja Bojc Bidovec, [1] who began working there in February 1944. Among the doctors working in the hospital there was also an Italian, Antonio Ciccarelli. [2] Extremely well equipped for a clandestine partisan operation, the hospital remained intact until the end of the war. It was designed to provide treatment to as many as 120 patients at a time, but saw almost ten times as many during its operation. Most of its patients were wounded anti-Nazi resistance fighters, who could not go to regular hospitals because they would be arrested. Among its patients were many nationalities, including one wounded German enemy soldier who, after being treated, remained in the hospital as a member of the hospital staff. The hospital operated until 5 May 1945.

Post-war period

Franja Partisan Hospital became a part of the Cerkno Museum in 1963. In 1997, an American Association of Air Force Veterans issued an award to Franja Hospital for saving and treating downed American pilot Harold Adams.[ citation needed ]

It has been on a list of candidates to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000. [3] In 2003, a stamp was issued by the Slovene Post Office to mark the 60th anniversary of Franja Hospital, and became the stamp of the year in Slovenia. [4]

On 18 September 2007, the site was badly damaged in a flood after torrential rains. [5] It was reconstructed and completely rebuilt by 2010, and it was then reopened for visitors. [6] On 13 July 2023, heavy rainfall damaged the site again, completely destroying three buildings. In the event, three more buildings were damaged, electrical wiring was destroyed, and access to the entrance building was cut off. [7]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cerkno</span> Place in Littoral, Slovenia

Cerkno is a small town in the Littoral region of Slovenia. It has around 2,000 inhabitants and is the administrative centre of the Cerkno Hills. It is the seat of the Municipality of Cerkno.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carinthia (Slovenia)</span> Traditional region of Slovenia

Carinthia, also Slovene Carinthia or Slovenian Carinthia, is a traditional region in northern Slovenia. The term refers to the small southeasternmost area of the former Duchy of Carinthia, which after World War I was allocated to the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain. It has no distinct centre, but a local centre in each of the three central river valleys among the heavily forested mountains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Domžale</span> Town in Upper Carniola, Slovenia

Domžale is a town and the seat of Municipality of Domžale in Slovenia. The town lies near the foothills of the Kamnik Alps and is crossed by the Kamnik Bistrica River. It includes the hamlets of Zgornje Domžale, Spodnje Domžale, and Študa. Domžale is known today for its small businesses, agriculture, and light industry.

Kočevski Rog or Kočevje Rog or simply Rog is a karstified plateau in the Kočevje Highlands above the Črmošnjice Valley in southeastern Slovenia. The plateau is part of the traditional Lower Carniola region of Slovenia and of the Dinaric Alps. The highest area is the central part, with the 1099-metre-high peak of Veliki Rog. The plateau is densely forested. The only ski slope in Lower Carniola, Rog-Črmošnjice also lies in the vicinity of Rog.

Il Cuore nel Pozzo is a TV movie, produced by state broadcaster RAI, that focuses on the escape of a group of children from Tito's partisans in the aftermath of World War II, as they start an ethnic cleansing of all Italians from Istria and the Julian March. The word "pit" in the movie's title refers to a foiba, indicating foibe massacres.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Dražgoše</span>

The Battle of Dražgoše was a Second World War battle between the Slovene Partisans and Nazi Germany armed forces, which took place between January 9 and January 11, 1942, in the village of Dražgoše in German-annexed Slovenia. This battle was the first direct confrontation between the two. It ended with brutal reprisals of German forces against the villagers and the destruction of the village.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ljubljana University Medical Centre</span> Hospital in Ljubljana, Slovenia

The Ljubljana University Medical Centre or Ljubljana UMC is the largest hospital centre in Slovenia based in Ljubljana. It was officially opened on 29 November 1975 and as of December 2019 has over 2,100 beds and over 8,300 employees, making it one of the largest hospital centres in Central Europe.

Žale Central Cemetery, often simply Žale, is the largest and the central cemetery in Ljubljana and Slovenia. It is located in the Bežigrad District and operated by the Žale Public Company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frankolovo crime</span>

The Frankolovo crime was one of the worst Nazi war crimes in the territory of present-day Slovenia during World War II. On February 12, 1945, members of the Wehrmacht killed one hundred Slovene civilians at Graben in Stranice, near Frankolovo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prešeren House</span>

The Prešeren House is a house in the village of Vrba in the Municipality of Žirovnica in Slovenia. It is the house where the Slovene poet France Prešeren was born in 1800. The Slovene theologian and archbishop Anton Vovk was also born in the same house in 1900. The house is a good example of an Upper Carniolan farmhouse. Since 1939, it has housed a small museum collection with furnishings from the poet's time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Čepovan</span> Place in Slovenian Littoral, Slovenia

Čepovan is a settlement in the Municipality of Nova Gorica in western Slovenia. Apart from the main village of Čepovan, it extends to include a number of smaller hamlets in the valley known as Čepovanski Dol: Dol, Drage, Frata, Griva, Lazna, Močile, Podčepovna, Pod Goro, Puštale, Robe, Rut, Šulgi, Tesno, Vrata, and Vrše.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Komendska Dobrava</span> Place in Upper Carniola, Slovenia

Komendska Dobrava is a dispersed settlement in the hills north of Komenda in the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dupeljne</span> Place in Upper Carniola, Slovenia

Dupeljne is a small settlement in the hills north of Lukovica pri Domžalah in the eastern part of the Upper Carniola region of Slovenia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ernest Peterlin</span> Yugoslav general

Ernest Peterlin was a Slovene military officer who rose to a senior position in the Royal Yugoslav Army prior to the Second World War. Married to Anja Roman Rezelj. A decided anti-Communist, during the war he became a prominent anti-Partisan military leader and one of the main exponents of the pro-Western faction of the Slovene Home Guard, an anti-Communist collaborationist militia active in parts of German-occupied Slovenia between 1943 and 1945. In 1945, he was tried and sentenced to death by the new Yugoslav Communist authorities and executed in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iška, Ig</span> Place in Inner Carniola, Slovenia

Iška is a settlement in Upper Iška Valley in the Municipality of Ig in central Slovenia. The entire municipality is part of the traditional region of Inner Carniola and is now included in the Central Slovenia Statistical Region. The settlement includes the hamlet of Mala Vas, where the road to Gornji Ig branches off.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boštjan Burger</span>

Boštjan Burger is a Slovenian informatician, geographer, a panoramic and VR panoramic photographer and a speleologist. He was founder of the Burger Landmarks website and had retired as computer programmer in the 1990s to become a geographic researcher on the hydrology of waterfalls. He used VR panoramas as a tool in the research of landscapes. He was greatly influenced by geographer Don Bain for documenting the landscape with VR panoramas and Hans Nyberg for his use of QuickTime VR fullscreen panoramas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slovene Partisans</span> Slovene part of the Communist-led Yugoslav World War II resistance movement

The Slovene Partisans, formally the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Slovenia, were part of Europe's most effective anti-Nazi resistance movement led by Yugoslav revolutionary communists during World War II, the Yugoslav Partisans. Since a quarter of Slovene ethnic territory and approximately 327,000 out of total population of 1.3 million Slovenes were subjected to forced Italianization since the end of the First World War, the objective of the movement was the establishment of the state of Slovenes that would include the majority of Slovenes within a socialist Yugoslav federation in the postwar period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World War II in the Slovene Lands</span> History of Slovenia, 1941 to 1945

World War II in the Slovene Lands started in April 1941 and lasted until May 1945. The Slovene Lands were in a unique situation during World War II in Europe. In addition to being trisected, a fate which also befell Greece, Drava Banovina was the only region that experienced a further step—absorption and annexation into neighboring Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Hungary. The Slovene-settled territory was divided largely between Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, with smaller territories occupied and annexed by Hungary and the Independent State of Croatia.

Deleči Vrh is a remote abandoned settlement in the Municipality of Dolenjske Toplice in southern Slovenia. The area is part of the traditional region of Lower Carniola and is now included in the Southeast Slovenia Statistical Region. Its territory is now part of the village of Podstenice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cooperative Business Bank Building (Ljubljana)</span> Vienna Secession building in Ljubljana

The Cooperative Business Bank Building is a building designed in 1921 by architect Ivan Vurnik and his wife Helena Vurnik in the so-called Slovene "National Style" using decorative ornaments in the colors of Slovene tricolor and was inspired by the Vienna Secession style of architecture. It was commissioned by the Cooperative Business Bank, a local credit institution. It is located on Miklosich Street, Ljubljana, capital city of Slovenia, and has been called "the most beautiful building" in Ljubljana.

References

  1. ↑ Photo of Franja Bojc Bidovec [ permanent dead link ]
  2. ↑ "L'ANPI di Cividade del Friuli in visita al Museo della Bolnica Franja in Slovenia" Archived 2014-08-12 at the Wayback Machine , in Patria Indipendente, 24 July 2011, pg. 3.
  3. ↑ Franja Partisan Hospital - UNESCO World Heritage Centre; accessed 16 July 2015.
  4. ↑ Posta Slovenije d.o.o.: Dežela znamk: Filatelija: Poštne znamke: Znamke leta 2003, posta.si; accessed 16 July 2015.
  5. ↑ Boštjan Burger, Slovenia Landmarks - Events. Virtual Reality Panoramas of the consequences of destruction on 18 September 2007; accessed 30 March 2008.
  6. ↑ "Širca: Duh solidarnosti veje iz bolnice Franja" [The spirit of solidarity blows from Franja Hospital] (in Slovenian). MMC RTV Slovenia. 22 May 2010.
  7. ↑ "Znani prvi podatki: v neurjih vsaj 1.777 dogodkov #foto". siol.net (in Slovenian). Retrieved 2023-07-14.

46°9′12.7″N14°1′42.87″E / 46.153528°N 14.0285750°E / 46.153528; 14.0285750

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.