This little selection of items on display in the museums are from Partisans involved in opposing the Italian and German occupying regimes during the Second World War. From left to right:
(i) A milk can used by the Liberation Front activists for transporting illegal mail.
(ii) A Partisan’s cap.
(iii) The cap of an internee of Dachau Concentration Camp.
The occupying forces obviously didn’t like all this opposition and they tried to crack down on it as much as they could, including by surrounding the entire city with barbed wire. Many were murdered at Gramozna jama and one of the most horrifying situations is that if there was Partisan success in some operation they would simply find some random innocent local resident and execute them instead. Others were sent to concentration camps such as Dachau, Ravensbrück or Mauthausen, none of these were particularly desirable outcomes either.
Another place I’d like to visit is the Slovenia Partisan printing shop, located in Vojsko which is relatively near to the Italian border. The Italians and Germans never even found this printing press operation which was merrily printing tens of thousands of newspapers to distribute around the occupied territories.
The bravery of the partisans was evident, despite their sometimes different thoughts on the future of the region. The Italians declared that the city was “full of rebels” and the Germans said that “it was impossible to secure”, showing just what opposition can achieve. Back to the original items, it’s rather lovely to see some link back to the bravery that they showed, as they were always at risk of being executed if they were caught.