JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
C H A P T E R
2
13 - 27 May 1945
[Three aid workers describe the emergency camp at
Viktring.
Major Paul Barre, who was sent by the
Displaced
Persons
Branch
of
Allied
Military
Government to take charge, and the two relief workers
sent by NGO (non-governmental organisation) aid
agencies to help him: the British Red Cross nurse
Jane Balding and the Friends Ambulance Unit (Quaker)
worker, myself. Joze Jancar, the 19-year old Gloria
Bratina and Franc Pernisek then describe camp life,
the Chief of Staff what the domobranci were doing,
Marko Bajuk the speedy opening up of the schools, and
Franc Pernisek the spiritual support the refugees
derived from masses and devotions in the nearby
church.
A rumour spreads that the British are sending the
domobranci, not to Italy for their own greater safety
as promised, but to Yugoslavia and death.
The
Balding and Pernisek diaries recall the terror that
ensued, as do the schoolboy Marian Loboda, the two
girls Majda Vracko and Marija Plevnik and the local
Austrian parish priest, Pfarrer Josef Mussger.
The engineering student Ivan Kukovica and the 16 year
old convent school girl Pavci Macek finally describe
what happened to the 11,000 domobranci and 600
civilians who were sent back.]
Go down to Viktring, there's a
mob of people, we don't know
what they're doing, who they
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are. Find out and let us know.
When Major Johnson, head of Allied Military Government
Displaced Persons Branch for Carinthia, told spokesmen for the
Slovene civilian refugees in his office in Klagenfurt on
Saturday the 12th May that he would send an officer to take
charge of their camp at Viktring, he was in fact desperately
short of staff. So it was the more fortunate that he sent them
Major Paul Barre, a 38-year-old Canadian from the Royal
Montreal Regiment who had substantial previous experience of
civil affairs administration as Allied Military Government
Provincial Officer in the Italian city of Ferrara and who
possessed just the right qualities for handling the crisis he
was soon to face: humanity, patience, courage and decisiveness.
Johnson briefed him with the words at the top of this page and
Barre was in Viktring on the Monday.
He has described1 the
methods he used - essentially a "refugee-centred" approach.
Regrettably few AMG and UNRRA officers did this.
Most made
little effort to respond to the wishes of the refugees:
When
we got to Viktring we found thousands of these
Yugoslavs, mainly Slovenes. My job was to ascertain
their arrival, why and the circumstances. It's very
simple, they were chased out. They realised if they
stayed they'd either have to accept communism or
suffer the consequences, and felt they'd rather
abandon their property and leave with the clothes
they were wearing and a few possessions they could
carry and their wagons, horse, cow, sheep and
whatever, and march into Austria.
You can imagine
the mental conditions these people went through,
going into the unknown.
We found them establishing
themselves on the ground as best they could.
Tethered to their wagons were their animals, and they
slept under the wagon, and that was the only
protection they ever had. What little food they had
they shared among themselves.
I felt it'd be better and easier to administer this thing
by getting all the people from Hampstead, we'd say,
grouped together, and all the people from Snowdon
grouped elsewhere, each group representing their
locality at home. They'd know each other fairly well
and get along with, protect one another. And then we
got them to organise a council of their own group,
and each group elected a president or secretary, a
headman, and this headman would then report to our
committee - the top people among the Yugoslavs or
Slovenes I could find there.
And there was a Dr
Valentin Mersol who spoke perfectly good English and
1
. Barre, Paul H., recorded interview 11034/3/1, Imperial
War Museum London Department of Sound Records, p 1.
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
who had studied medicine in the USA, through whom I
could administer or help administer the camp. It was
obviously impossible for me to visit every family and
listen to everyone's sorrows and demands, so we had
to organise a chain of command like the army does.
That worked out very well.
In time we were able to improve their lot by adding a
reasonably
good
supply
of
rations:
we
found
stationery and an old typewriter, an old radio they'd
listen to at night from the BBC, translate into their
language, type out and post wherever they could: so
that next morning the people could read the events of
the night before and keep up.
The weather was
terrible, it rained most of the time and we were
living in puddles.
There was a stream running
through the camp, and this was the only water
available. You can imagine how anxious I was, but I
got our engineers to establish water-purifying
equipment.
I was able to get one small piece of soap per person per
month for all purposes - those little cakes of soap
you get in a small motel - and you can imagine it was
very difficult. However in fairness to these people
let me say they are very religious, mostly Roman
Catholics, and on Sundays they all turned out in
their best attire: the women had frocks and the men
dark suits, a white shirt and tie. Where they kept
these, pressed and clean, I don't know, it's a bloody
miracle really.
To show you the character of the
people, with John Corsellis we started up some
schools. We found they had nuns and teachers. The
children didn't learn very much grammar but at least
it kept them occupied. Then we had a number of expolice people and they wanted to do something, so
they asked could they be armed.
That the Slovenes should feel insecure was understandable, with
armed partisan bands ranging around Klagenfurt. The Red Cross
nurse Jane Balding, who was posted to the camp on 23 May,
writes:
18 May Tito's boys running wild causing trouble
19 May
Partisans very noisy in evening
sounds of
shooting up
Incident in square this a.m.
a bit
sticky
20 May
Tito's boys parading all over town in afternoon
all very warlike
cleared out later
23 May
armed British guards all round as Tito's men
threaten to massacre them all
But Major Barre considered the British guards sufficient and
was not prepared to arm the camp police:
Even if they had no ammunition I didn't want anyone to
carry arms in the civilian camp, but we broke a
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
branch of a tree and said, here's your night stick if
you care to have something.
However the Slovenes
among themselves were so well-disciplined we never
had to have recourse to punishment or trial or that
sort of thing.
Throughout my stay we never had
trouble.
We had twelve or fourteen women who gave birth, and only
one baby died. We found they had very few qualified
doctors with the exception of Dr Mersol, but I was
able finally to acquire thermometers and rubber
gloves and pills and bandages and whatever they
required.
There was a building we turned into a
clinic, and the morning sick parade was probably
attended by twenty-five people out of thousands, so
their state of health was very, very good in spite of
the arduous conditions under which they were living.
I had two very charming British Red Cross people, Florence
Phillips and Jane Balding. They did a wonderful job.
I never gave them direct orders, I welcomed them and
said, "well, you know what to do, go ahead. If you
need anything let me know". I never dictated, I was
there to help them, "please run your own show".
I
did that to give them confidence, both to the
civilians or the Red Cross people or anyone else that
worked in the camp - each was responsible for their
behaviour, their administration, their work.
I was there to help at a higher level if they met with
difficulties or opposition: let me know and I'd
straighten things out.
They never came back, so I
presumed everything went well, and the fact there was
no strike, no disagreement, it was all one big
family, I think proved my theory in operating this
particular camp was justified: they were so busy
looking after themselves they didn't get into trouble
or disagreements, and if they had something they went
to see Mersol, and Mersol came to see me, and I dealt
with Mersol and no one else. Not that I didn't want
to deal with anyone else but if I showed favouritism
on one, then I'd have to do it for others and the
whole authority, the line of communication, would
have crumbled away. I was using my army experience,
which proved to be very good indeed.
I didn't administer the camp with a stick in my hand. I
wanted - that may have been a weakness on my part -to
give them the feeling they were running their own
camp: I was there to help if they needed it, I wasn't
there to direct them, and I felt that would be
perhaps a means of giving encouragement and selfreliance in view of all the misery they'd gone
through.
Shortly after I got there I realised they couldn't live
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
with their horses and other animals tethered to their
wagons, and we established horse lines; and these
animals require constant food, small quantities but
at very regular intervals, and they were just being
starved. So by having horse lines it was easier to
feed them, and also in time we had to butcher them to
feed the people. So they were sent to Klagenfurt at
the abattoir and slaughtered properly and butchered
and the meat came back.
I well remember the day I
made the pronouncement even Dr Mersol looked at me
and I could read on his face, "here's the last straw.
We've been robbed of everything by the Germans, by
our own people, and now this Canadian is robbing us
of our horses". I wasn't robbing them, I was really
putting them away to one side, and I simply said,
"look, you can go and pat your horse every day if you
want to".
It was for their own health and protection, but I can well
imagine their reaction. Because you must always put
yourself in their position, how difficult it must be
to accept that anyone was trying to do something to
help rather than steal things from them.
For that
had been their experience ever since they left their
home towns and villages; everyone was always taking
something away.
I placed myself in their position,
how would I feel? And obviously the one man I could
see in a foreign uniform is the man that is
responsible for this.
Who else can I blame, see,
talk to, except that one person in uniform?
The
others are beyond them, Corps and the government at
Westminster! They can't go there to complain, they
come to me.
I'm the nearest boy they can whip if
they wish.
John Corsellis came, not necessarily every day, and did
what he could to organise, in their own fashion, the
various things they did. I didn't have much contact
except seeing him now and again.
I knew he was a
Quaker, and I think they are pacifists; that's an
uphill struggle, a pacifist in war-time.
However I
grant him all the dues he deserves because of this
wonderful work he did, he and all the others like
him.
Dr Mersol's role at Viktring was very important vis-a-vis
his own people because they all looked up to him, to
contact me or whoever was responsible, to present
their demands for assistance.
Mostly it was food,
and when the climax came it was a question of not
having to be sent back.
So they went through him,
and that gave him the authority and I hope helped
him,
because
they
in
turn
would
follow
his
directions.
We had a very good relationship and there was a trust
there, he was very helpful and I did all I could to
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
help and support him.
I never, in all the weeks I
was with these people, had difficulties with him, and
no individual caused any trouble in the camp. There
was never any question of holding a trial or having a
meeting to reprimand anyone. Everyone minded his own
business and they went along as best they could. But
it was my principle - let them run their camp, and I
was there to help them. I was not trying to dictate
their way of life, because I was smart enough to
realise I didn't know how they lived, what kind of
life they led, I never met these people before in my
life. So what else could I do?
"You know what to do, go ahead", Barre had told Jane Balding.
The breathless telegraphese of her diary depicts a relief
worker's job better than any more measured summary:
Wednesday 23 May
Went out to new camp at Viktring
Amazing sight
6,000 odd men, women & children
encamped in open on one side & 11,000 soldiers on
other
All fugitives from Tito tanks, and armed
British guards all round as Tito's mob threaten to
massacre them all
Like some fantastic film
Inspected MI [Medical Inspection] room & office, all
very well organised.
At nearby factory which houses most of children & mothers,
took small baby to civilian hospital in Klagenfurt,
full of SS & Gestapo staff (cannot be locked up till
replacements are found)
Had to get British officer
to settle their hash & make them take baby
Chased
round all afternoon trying to lay on milk for camp
Am to have own car & driver.
Thursday 24 May
Awful night
Tanks roaring past, armed
guards chasing armed escapees round hotel
Pelted
with rain all night, was afraid I'd find camp washed
out
Not too bad
Went with Major Barre, grand
sort, Canadian CC [camp commandant]
to Dellach on
lake to see three measles children in hospital
Found other baby there
Very different to civil
hospital, all very charming & kind to children
Beautiful run from camp
Rained again after lunch
Went with Major on scrounge,
raided Nazi offices for school paper etc., went to
neighbouring camp & begged linen for MI room
Mary
Tanner2 says head of armed forces coming to my camp
tomorrow, maybe Alexander but think it's McCreery
Toothache, bed
Friday 25 May
Had General Sir Richard McCreery3 in
morning
Only time he got out of his car was to walk
2
.
3
British Red Cross supervisor for Carinthia
. Commander, British 8th Army
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
through mud to shake hands with me
Great thrill
Newspaper bloke chased me afterwards
Saw school in
action in open
Stopped raining for hour or so
Back to lunch
Afternoon off to have tooth out
Very nice army dentist lad
Nasty abscess
Have to
have two stopped some time soon
Came back to bed
Got up for dinner
Bed straight afterwards, read
till 11
My own letter-diary complements Barre and Balding.
I wrote
with all the self-confidence of a 22-year old, suggesting Barre
"might do better" and making sweeping criticisms of Balding.
She was just as critical of me, no doubt with greater
justification.
There was a strong personality clash.
I had
had enough of masterful hospital sisters after a year as ward
orderly in wartime hospitals in England, and she could not
stand immature, bumptious and disrespectful conscientious
objectors!
Recently I spoke with a refugee who after fifty
years still remembered her devoted work and kindness with the
greatest affection and gratitude.
My diary entry on Viktring
started:
When I arrived they all had their horses inside the camp,
and as there were over 400 you can imagine what the
ground was like. They of course always got the best
accommodation: some had even roofs made of boards.
When it was dry things weren't too bad, but this
district is particularly liable to sudden storms with
heavy rain, and then the place was liable to become a
sea of mud. We've now got them out of the camp, in
long lines in the shade of an avenue of trees just
along a stream: they are very impressive - all
organised and done entirely by the Slovenes after we
had suggested it rather strongly: they cut and
carried the wood from the local woods and for the
first 200 horses used wire instead of nails4.
The British workers number four: two Red Cross women, a
Canadian Major i/c and myself.
One Red Cross woman
is a parson's sister and a mixture of North Country
and Irish, has a biggish heart but is pretty
impossible in every other way - very full of herself
and how she does things, with a nurses's outlook etc,
etc, but the other is Scotch, has imagination and
ability and should be easy to work with.
The Red Cross Assistant Commissioner described her in his
memoirs as "an excellent girl, Scotch and exuberant".
I
continued:
The Major is a charming and self-effacing man who is very
patient with the refugees, does his best for them and
certainly does not try to "manage" his staff.
The
great snag is he started on the job alone here and
4
. until I obtained nails for them from the Royal Engineers
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
still approaches it from the point of view of a
liaison officer between the army and the Slovene
committee which runs the camp; he has no previous
experience of camp administration and isn't much
interested, and does nothing to coordinate the work
of his staff.
It is extraordinarily difficult to
work as part of a machine that has no steering wheel
or driver. Also he imagines the Slovenes are a good
bit more efficient than in fact they are. The job is
very good for me: not only must I go tactfully
because I am more often than not dealing with men
much older than myself, but also all the workers are
unpaid so that one has to be very careful how much
pressure one puts on to avoid them simply downing
tools!
It occurs to me that I have hardly mentioned the end of
the European war. I think many people in Italy were
more moved by the Italian armistice, which was a
close and immediate thing to them, than by the
general
surrender.
Probably
the
general
international political position is more depressing
out here than at home, so many of the frightful
problems are posed to us so vividly here: the future
of the Chetniks, the Germans from Yugoslavia, the
Russians who fought for the Germans, of Austria and
of Germany, of Poland, of Trieste, of the stateless
persons.
The last four lines referred in a veiled way to the forcible
repatriations.
I avoided mentioning them in so many words,
from a reluctance to distress my mother and fear of the censor.
As
to my personal future, I haven't worked out my
demobilisation group but I guess I am somewhere in
the 50s, which will mean that unless Japan collapses
unexpectedly I will have some time to wait and
meanwhile there is certainly a job worth doing out
here, which is giving me excellent experience and
should end me up with a reasonable command of three
languages, Italian, German and French.
I would
certainly like to be home but there are many
thousands of service men who have been away far
longer than me, and are now queuing up for the return
boat.
Why should working with refugees in Austria "end me up with a
reasonable command of Italian and French" as well as German?
French was spoken by most of the older Yugoslav and Russian
intelligentsia, and for Italian I had a special use because it
was my most fluent foreign language after six months work with
Italian refugees. When I arrived at Viktring and asked Major
Barre how I could best help, he referred me to Dr Mersol and he
suggested hygiene. He said I would need an interpreter and he
had just the right man, a medical student two years older than
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
me who had organisational experience and while interned in the
Italian concentration camp at Gonars had learnt the language;
and that was how I got to know Joze Jancar.
He has already
recounted his flight into Austria. A little taller than I was,
just as thin and with striking red hair, he continued to
interpret for me after we had finished hygiene and moved on to
education, and later played a key role in the opening of the
camp for university students in Graz.
Here he recounts his
memories of Viktring:
Mersol said, "look, let's hope he'll be able to do
something.
He seems young and energetic".
He was
expecting someone with more authority, a major or
something, for six thousand people, and was a bit
sceptical, and then he realised when we started to
march around - and, my God, you were walking fast!
And really it was a great success because Mersol was
often saying, "it's unbelievable how much you two
did".
I was exhausted after you all day!
It was
sunny and very hot, and you came early and left late.
And
you
brought
10,000
tablets,
or
pinched
somewhere, sulphonamide. I remember you brought this
to Mersol and everybody was cured with whatever
disease they had, because this was the only thing.
Chemotherapy, the treatment of diseases by chemical compounds
such as sulphonamide with specific bactericidal effects, and
DDT powder for the control of typhus-carrying lice were
spectacularly effective in maintaining a high standard of
health in camps where conditions were often primitive.
After the accounts of those who ran the camp - commandant,
nurse, relief worker and interpreter - it is time for the
refugees themselves.
First Gloria Bratina, then aged 19, who
arrived with her parents and eight brothers and sisters. Her
comments on the forcible repatriations, diet, health and
hygiene are of particular interest as she later qualified as a
doctor:
We built ourselves a little tent - there were some
blankets we picked up - very fast because of course
we were sporty people, gimnazija [grammar school]
students. We managed to organise ourselves quickly,
cut some branches for a structure, my dad was very
good at it. There was a place where you had to pick
up your bread and so on, and meat when they were
killing the mules or horses; and we cooked soup and
sometimes went downtown to get onions and lettuce.
We were very cold at nights, especially when the
rainy time started.
There were about two weeks of
heavy rain and mud. It was quite difficult. Our two
brothers with the domobranci arrived one or two weeks
later.
They were not sent back.
No.
We were
strong; they wanted to go, and we just didn't allow
them.
We heard already that they were sending them
back, and we said no. They were quite depressed and
didn't know what to do. They said, well, all right,
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
probably there is nothing going to happen, and if it
happens ...
And we said no.
We tried to get them
some clothes.
They were staying with their unit.
You know how naive they were: they thought, well,
O.K., they are going to Italy just like everybody
else. They were young too. We just said no, we put
the pressure on, this was the family. Then they left
their units and came into the civilian camp and took
off their uniforms. We were begging around for some
clothes.
There
was a lot of depression there for the whole
community and we went to church a lot, we prayed like
anything.
Some of us fell ill.
I believe it was
salmonella; no wonder, it wasn't proper water, but we
recovered pretty soon.
It was surprising there
wasn't an epidemic. It was very good they came with
the DDT, the British Red Cross, it was wonderful. I
encouraged the people around - some of them were
trying to escape it.
I said, this is the only
solution - all those little insects coming around:
the fear of typhus.
Franc Pernisek gives his account of camp life:
Monday 14th May.
A fine morning, the sun shines
strongly. With darkness it becomes cold and at night
very cold. Thank God the weather has been very, very
kind. People start to construct emergency dwellings:
awnings are a good shelter to keep off heat, wind and
rain, and some have cut branches as cover or a big
blanket serves as a temporary tent. Some are making
huts from fir tree bark. We've exchanged our lovely,
comfortable homes for this gipsy life.
The camp is totally disorganised with civilians, soldiers,
livestock all mixed up and a most unpleasant smell
everywhere.
There are crowds of people queuing for
drinking water at every well: some have already run
dry and others put out of action by the locals on
purpose.
The greatest difficulties are experienced
from not being able to satisfy basic human needs.
There are no latrines yet, but English soldiers are
already digging long, deep pits with huge machines.
Lieutenant-Colonel Ivan Drcar, chief-of-staff of the domobranci
in the military camp, was keeping his own diary:
14 to 20 May.
There is total confusion and disorder in
the camp, and Army units are mixed up with civilians
and their families, wagons and horses. We're taking
the most pressing steps to maintain hygiene and carry
out policing duties. It's hard to keep order without
any sanctions. The heat is unbearable. ...
It was made known to the [Slovene] National Committee that
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
the British considered us as prisoners-of-war if we
remained in uniform, but whoever changed into
civilian clothes would be considered a civilian.
I
kept this latter option in front of me because our
situation was uncertain, and then impeded the influx
of civilians into the army and didn't agree with the
Legion5 mobilizing its members.
I'm trying to set up an intelligence section because it's
imperative we find out what the British are planning
to do with us ... and what happened to the group of
chetniks who left before we did. Less and less news
is arriving.
Krenner is away during the afternoons
because he drives by auto each day to visit his wife
in Krumpendorf6.
Colonel Drcar recorded elsewhere that the British had dropped
an obvious hint it would be better if the soldiers changed into
civilian clothes and that Dr. Bajlec, a member of the Slovene
National Committee, had told him on 21 May that the British had
indicated they would consider all those in uniform as
prisoners-of-war, and those in civilian clothes as refugees.
General Krenner refused to accept the need for a intelligence
section and would not allow Colonel Drcar to set one up, but
continued to press ahead with recruitment so as to increase the
number of troops he had serving under him.
Nobody liked or
trusted him.
Dr. Mersol's youngest son, then a 11-year-old,
recalls:
Next to us was the camp of the anti-communist fighters. I
remember Dad being absolutely furious because they
were trying to recruit more troops among the young.
He and Krenner got into a major fight.
Dad never
yelled at anybody, but this time he let him have it
and I was surprised the language he knew, because he
was absolutely furious.
Krenner was appalling, he
would call everybody else a liar.
Marko Sfiligoi, then an ordinary soldier aged 19, also recalls:
I was with the main domobranci HQ in Ljubljana and knew
all the top officers (including Vuk Rupnik) and the
top politicians because they were continuously coming
there.
I was also at Vetrinje, and knew all the
events with Krenner - we didn't like him. He was a
nasty guy.
Pernisek's diary continues:
Monday 14th May.
Today we received the first official
English visit. The Canadian Major Barre came, who'd
been appointed commandant of the camp by the English
5
. Slovenska Legija, the underground resistance
established by the Slovene People's Party in May 1941.
6
. village 15 km from Viktring on lake Woerthersee.
11
force
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
military authorities. This gentleman is very caring
and understanding and very calm.7 For supper we got
warm gruel.
Tuesday 15th May. The new commandant is an early riser.
It was nearly eight when he came with his assistants
and started putting some order into the camp.
He
made a round accompanied by Dr Mersol and ordered
that all the soldiers should leave the civilian camp
and go to the military camp, and that all horses
should be moved into the pastureland near the forest,
explaining that the civilian and military horses
would be used to feed the refugees.
He said we
should organise a work team and set up a camp
committee with whom he would meet for consultations
each morning.
He told us we would stay here some time longer and would
have to feed ourselves for a few more days until the
Military Government organised provisioning, which is
the most pressing need in Austria at the moment. For
many people, especially families with children, this
is quite a problem; even the few provisions they were
able to bring with them got lost in the confusion of
flight or were stolen. Only limitless confidence in
God's providence allays their fear for the future.
By evening the English soldiers brought some dry food
from their own stores.
Major Barre's first visit took place two days after the arrival
of the main body of refugees. He asked them to set up a camp
committee but they had already established one which they
called the "National Committee for Slovenia" and which passed
its first two decrees, both on education, on 16 and 18 May, as
the "annual report for the school-years 1945/46"8 recorded:
The National Committee for Slovenia with decree 1 issued
the charter of constitution for the new secondary
school and with decree 2 appointed Director Bajuk
chief of culture, charging him to organise all the
schooling among the Slovene refugees in Carinthia elementary,
higher
elementary,
professional
and
secondary schools.
And so we began working. There
were enough teachers for both the elementary and the
complete
secondary
school,
and
so
we
began
immediately in the most simple way, in the open and
in the corridors.
But from these simple beginnings
our work developed fast. The Lord had blessed it.
Director Bajuk has already appeared in this narrative, as the
60 year old grandfather who accompanied his son, daughter-inlaw and four grandchildren through the terrors of the tunnel.
7
. Dr Mersol described him as "a very conscientious and for
the Slovenian refugees very meritorious officer".
8
. Duplicated copy in the possession of the author.
12
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
Everyone mentions his phenomenal energy.
He had been
headmaster of the principal classical secondary school in
Ljubljana and also a school inspector. I described him at the
time as a cross between Lenin and Sir Thomas Beecham in
appearance and dynamism.
He was also a gifted composer and
arranger of songs for, and conductor of, the camp choir.
It
was he who wrote the school annual report.
He gave more
details later in his memoirs:
I began to worry about what would happen to our pupils ..
and made plans for a temporary school, having looked
through the list of secondary school teachers and
found that ones for almost all subjects were
available.
I raised the matter with Dr. Basaj,
deputy chairman of the National Council, who was at
once very keen, especially after seeing Dr. Mersol's
enthusiasm. So right away I invited all teachers and
pupils to meet at the central camp office and enough
turned up for us to decide to start lessons
immediately, which led to decree No 1.
But we had
enormous difficulties - no classrooms, books, writing
paper, pencils. We cleaned out an abandoned building
with an adjoining barn for classrooms and used what
we could lay our hands on for chairs, a few planks of
wood for desks, while the English camp commandant
Major Barre, who was very kind to us, got us a
blackboard.
Professor Sever from Jezica and our
Bozidar helped a lot with cleaning up and sorting
things out, and the girls from Jezica did all the
heavy and dirty work.
There were no books.
I borrowed a few Latin and Greek
texts from the Jesuit monastery, Bozidar copied them
for our pupils on his knees and on wooden crates, and
we found single books among the pupils, at secondhand dealers and from individuals in Klagenfurt.
With great difficulty we got paper and a few pencils
from the camp office and bought some in Klagenfurt.
Teachers had to prepare scripts for all subjects,
write down lessons and texts, compose mathematical
problems, etc.
All this required enormous work,
specially difficult because the teachers were living
in tents.
Colonel Baty's report rightly described
the whole achievement as heroic.
As I had also been given provisional responsibility for
the whole of education I called together all the
elementary school teachers and pupils. Six Salesians
also came to the meeting, and I put Cigan in charge
of out-of-school youth activities and Mihelic of
singing, and the others helped in the schools.
The elementary school was running within a week - Jane Balding
"saw school in action in open" on the 25th May - and lessons
for the 148 secondary school pupils started in mid-June.
Colonel Baty inspected the secondary school in August and his
13
report is reproduced under that date.
Ember
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
Pernisek continues:
Saturday 19th May9.
Our morning devotions, the
smarnice10, are just beautiful.
From seven in the
morning the church is full to the last small corner.
A different priest delivers a sermon each day,
followed by sung mass with organ accompaniment.
People are very composed and all receive holy
communion, while the singing is most beautiful and
from the heart. Holy communion is distributed by two
priests at all masses, and these are being said from
five till ten-thirty.
The confessionals are also
permanently besieged.
Wherever one looks round the church one sees tears in
people's eyes. We are all suffering under the cross
we put on our own shoulders.
We took it up
willingly; let us carry it following Christ, who
suffers with us. We only ask that we understand in
the right way the suffering of these times and that
God does not try us beyond our strength, so that we
do not fall under the weight of the cross. Jesus, be
you our Simon of Cyrene when our strength ebbs away!
Afternoon and evening services are also beautiful.
Smarnice for all - a sung holy rosary and sung
litanies of Our Lady - are offered at six in front of
a large framed canvas painting of Marija Pomagaj11.
The domobranci have their own smarnice at eight, the
special attraction being the mighty male choir.
Sunday 20th May.
Today is Pentecost.
Three Montenegrin
chetniks came to the camp.
15,000 left Montenegro
but only these three reached here: all the others
died on the journey, many of typhus fever, or were
killed by the ustashe or the partisans.
The
partisans captured them near Kamnik, disarmed them
and took them away together with their women and
children somewhere north of Kamnik where they killed
them with machine guns.
Some 300 Montenegrins were
killed that way, all who reached Slovenia.
Tuesday 22nd May. Today we received bread for the first
time - stale army rations but the children eat it
with relish.
Today we realise what a great
inestimable boon it is when we're so hungry. A few
weeks
ago
I
read
a
book
"L'eroica
felicita
giaponese"12 and couldn't understand or imagine their
9
. the Saturday before Whitsunday, a day of fasting and
prayer.
10
.
a popular Slovene church service comprising an
exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, sermon, rosary, litanies
of Loreto and benediction.
11
. Mary Help Us.
12
. the heroic happiness of the Japanese
14
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
simple and unostentatious life style.
I understand
now when I see how easily man can live simply. I can
rest well, sleeping on a palliasse or on the bare
hard ground.
A lot of makeshift cooking places are springing up in the
camp: two bricks, some twigs and branches between
them, empty tin cans or a washing bowl on them and
the food is cooking.
A royal dish, if a morsel of
meat and fat has been added.
We now find despised
horsemeat very tasty, and of this there's enough.
Our horses grow fewer every day, as the army has
driven them all off except for the few needed for the
transport of supplies.
The camp presents a unique sight in the evening. Mighty
Mount Kosuta sparkles in the setting sun like a giant
emerald, while smaller mountains and hills are
wrapped in a mysterious bluish hue set off by the
magnificent green of the pine trees.
Fairy-like
white wisps of mist float above the larger and
smaller lakes. Daylight dims fast, the day ebbs away
and the camp becomes a single huge bonfire.
One
blaze after another lights up the surroundings
fabulously and smoke rises skywards like a thin
transparent veil.
From the fires come a cheerful
chatter of voices and the joyful sound of the
patriotic songs of the domobranci accompanied by
accordions. Now and again horses' neighs pierce the
air.
Eventually the camp falls silent with God's
sublime peace above it.
I walk around the camp between eleven and twelve. Silence
and peace reign.
One hears people's snoring in a
light drone. The tents assume a silver colour in the
moonlight and the stars twinkle happily.
Here and
there some older refugee sits in front of his tent
and gazes at the sky, searching for his own star.
Only the coughing of the elderly and the ominous
hooting of the owls disturb this heavenly peace.
Ill-omened owls!
From early childhood I hate your
sinister hooting.
I'm trembling and my soul is
filled with an inexplicable fear. I can't shake off
the impression that these hoots presage horror and
death.
I'm suffocated by this feeling and try to
escape it.
Thursday 24th May.
The feast of our Maria Pomagaj of
Brezje, our national day. Today the English started
to carry away the Serbian volunteers and the
Mihailovic chetniks: heavy rain made the removal very
sad, the soldiers gloomy and subdued. The whole camp
is one muddy lake.
Engineer Tavcar gives a second account of camp life in his
diary:
15
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
16th May.
Troops, battalions and regiments are being
formed in the army section of the camp.
18th May. The food situation for us refugees is getting
worse.
Many are starving, especially those from
Dolenjska.
22nd & 23rd May. Life continues much the same every day.
We have weddings and births and church services.
School has started, with around 400 school-age
children taught by refugee teachers.
Today I was
planning to go to Klagenfurt by bike, but the English
wouldn't let anyone out of the camp. In the morning
some 10,000 English soldiers arrived from somewhere,
driving in their tanks along the roads headed East.
24th May. Life is getting dull, we've lost our sense of
time. We sleep under carts and bark sheds, cook what
we've left in barrels.
They say the English will
start giving us bread in two days. It's been raining
all day long, which has a very bad effect on us since
we're crouching under the carts. Sanitary conditions
are getting worse, with one more calamity - lice.
Rumours start begin to circulate that the men are not being
sent for their safety down to Italy as promised, but back to
Yugoslavia. The Red Cross nurse, Jane Balding, writes:
Friday 26 May
heck of a night
sore throat
result of
injection
earache
jaw ache
full of misery
went to camp
awful tales of returned refugees being
murdered in tunnels
main question seems to be do
they return to be murdered or stay here & starve or
die of pneumonia if they are not under cover soon
incessant pelting spring rains
camp one huge swamp
spent afternoon packing up to leave hotel for billet
moved after tea
am in house alone
nice little
room with balcony
others all in next house
mine
to be mess
me to be messing officer!
had dinner
at hotel decided to stay night!
all very pleasant
sat in bar talking shop to Major Barre
mostly
childbirth!!
Sunday 27 May
spent morning running round camp &
chatting to British guard
huge church service in
open for refugees
priest in all his finery
most
picturesque
spent whole afternoon till 6.30 going
round country with Major B. & Major Sturgis looking
for home for our 17,000
decide we must build
hutments.
Pernisek writes:
Sunday 27th May. Today the first contingent of domobranci
leave the camp.
The order for departure arrived
without warning last night.
We celebrate the first
16
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
mass of the young priest Fr Vinko Zakelj in the
parish church of Our Lady of Victories, but there's
no festive spirit, the mood sad rather than cheerful.
Marian Loboda, a schoolboy at the time, who earlier described
life under German occupation now gives his account of Vetrinje:
The
days we stayed in Vetrinje were for a youth of
fourteen full of adventure.
By good fortune the
climate was fairly kind and I don't remember
suffering from bad weather. What I did feel after a
couple of days was hunger. Once my mother got hold
of a piece of mule meat and we started a fire, found
an empty food can and began to cook it.
I know I
collected a mountain of firewood and the meat was
still tough.
In the end we ate it because hunger
overcomes everything. We liked the English soldiers
who mounted guard round our encampment and looked on
them as our protectors.
There were warning notices
that partisans were prowling around and reports of
kidnappings and assassinations of people who'd
strayed from the encampment.
Apart from that we
children had a good time, and everyday made fresh
discoveries.
Teachers tried to get us together for
games and lessons and to protect us from the many
dangers we ourselves ignored.
One
morning towards the end of May I watched the
domobranci climb onto the trucks and leave to the
accompaniment of songs and cheers.
They said they
were going to Italy and we'd soon be following them.
I didn't take much notice, perhaps because the
soldiers from our Kranj detachment were detailed to
go last.
A couple of days later I went into the
little church belonging to the convent of Vetrinje,
moved by curiosity at the uncontrollable weeping I
heard. There were a lot of women and some men in the
church, all praying aloud between tears and sobs.
They were the mothers, sisters, wives and betrothed,
fathers, brothers and friends of the domobranci,
who'd left for Italy in the English trucks a day or
two earlier.
The
first to escape had arrived and told what had
happened.
The English had treacherously sent the
domobranci to the Yugoslav frontier and handed them
over, disarmed and deceived, to their mortal enemies,
Tito's partisans.
No one was under the slightest
illusion as to what would happen to them. Everything
collapsed completely, first of all our faith in the
men we'd always believed to be "gentlemen". The blow
was so great that people lost the most basic of
instincts of struggle to save their lives.
Young
men, previously true heroes, seemed to be without the
slightest will to do anything to save themselves.
All that remained for us was God's mercy and prayer.
17
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
Majda Vracko has already related her flight from Ljubljana with
her father the judge, and here she describes their arrival at
Viktring.
Not yet 17 herself, she looked for her brother
Marian who had just turned 16 and was with the domobranci:
The second day I looked for him: he was nowhere.
The
third day Dr Puc told me he thinks he's in the sickbay, and I went there and sure enough he was. I met
with him every day until he moved and was in the
middle of the field somewhere: they had their own
tents and I was visiting him there. All the people
we knew were slowly finding each other, friends with
whom we were going over Ljubelj, also school friends,
family friends. I knew a lot of people I didn't even
know were there! And Marko Bajuk, the director of my
school, the classical gimnazija of Ljubljana, made me
feel very good when he said, "don't worry, we won't
waste an hour, we'll start the school right now."
And he started it, we were meeting outside on the
grass of that monastery in one corner. And when we
were there in 1989 we went to visit that corner, and
it's still there.
We were meeting very regularly,
and each day there was another new professor that
came from somewhere, so that we had quite a good
selection.
It was very pleasant because there were so many people to
talk to, and food wasn't too bad; I think we were
hungry but didn't realise it. I remember once I went
to church and all of a sudden I'm on the ground and
lots of people are standing round me, and I said,
what happened? And they said, you fainted. I said,
how could I faint? I'm not sick. And somebody said,
you're hungry.
And I said, is that what hunger
means?
Because I'm hungry for the first time ever.
I think it was not knowing we were hungry and having
friends around that helped.
In the morning we
started with going to church, which was a beautiful
old monastery. Masses were going on from six o'clock
until noon.
There were many, many priests, and
masses at all the altars, so you didn't even have to
go at a certain time, you just went and were able to
participate in one or other service. Every day.
And
then came Monday when they started to send the
soldiers, as we thought, to Italy.
We were quite
happy they were able to go because they said, "we're
going to make way for you".
At first they said
civilians shouldn't go because we don't know how
rough it's going to be, and even so a few went13. So
they went Monday, Tuesday ... Wednesday they started
to say something's wrong.
13
. in fact, a total of 600
18
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
But on the Tuesday Dr Puc comes to the factory and is
looking around and says, "I'd like to speak with Miss
Vracko.
Where is Miss Vracko?"
I didn't know him
then and thought he was a priest because he had a
dark blue suit and a white shirt, and I said, "I'm
Majda Vracko" and he said, "I've very bad news for
you.
Your father had high fever, he was delirious
and we had to send him to Klagenfurt hospital." My
God, what is this? And then Dr Mersol comes. Since
I knew him, he knew I'd feel better if he talked to
me and he said, "I think it's typhoid, but he had
very high fever and was completely delirious."
Fortunately with English help they could transport
him to the hospital.
So all of a sudden I was alone. I went to see my brother
and he wasn't in his tent any more, and I didn't know
whether he'd left.
I didn't find him, but I met
somebody else and he said, "no, no, no, his unit is
still here."
So I didn't worry yet.
Wednesday
somebody said, "they're returning them back to Tito."
I said, "it can't be."
And then I heard from
somebody else, "I think they are returning them." So
I went to ask Max Jan, one of the university students
who knew my father. I said, "would you say this was
true?" and he said, "Miss Vracko, are you also one of
those who believe that communistic propaganda? They
want to make us afraid, to make us doubt.
Don't
believe it".
So I was very calm.
And that was
Wednesday.
Next day Majda did believe.
It took me longer as I was
dividing my days between Viktring and a camp in Klagenfurt. I
had established cordial relations with my Italian-speaking
interpreter, and the other refugees were warmly appreciative of
what we were doing, but after a few days their attitude towards
me changed mysteriously and they became cold, withdrawn,
mistrustful and almost hostile. I found the atmosphere deeply
uncomfortable and was mystified, as Joze Jancar recalls:
You won't remember, but I remember. I asked, "John, why
didn't you tell me?" and you said, "I didn't know"
and I said, "John, is that the truth?" and you said,
"it's the truth. I didn't know". I asked because,
you see, nobody trusted you and they were suspicious
of me, that I was knowing things because we were,
they saw us, always together. I remember distinctly
I asked you and you were very upset. But people did
not believe - before they were very friendly to you but it took a long time, and then they came back.
To return to Majda Vracko:
Thursday more and more people were saying they are
returning them, so I was determined to go down to get
my brother. I got there but all I found - my brother
19
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
was very fond as a little boy of radios, any kind of
mechanical things, and I still saw some parts of his
radio he was showing me a few days before. So I knew
this was his tent, and he wasn't there any more. And
I spoke with another friend and he said, "yes, I saw
him, he was going on to the camion, as they called
those huge trucks, and I said 'Marian, don't you know
where you're going?' and he said, 'I don't believe
that. It's just a bunch of lies.' And he got on."
And then somebody else remembered seeing him later on
in Klagenfurt, and said the same to him. But at that
time they were all very resigned and said, "if this
happened to the rest of them, why not to us? I'm not
going to run away. This is the way it is." So that
was the last we heard of him.
My father was still in the hospital and I really didn't
know what was going on, and I somehow don't even
remember the next few days because I too fell sick.
I don't know whether I'd fever or not, I just
remember I wasn't even hungry, I was dreaming about
cherries that grew at home, I'd some sort of flu.
And one day I was sitting there on the floor in the
factory and I see my father come through the door,
ashen white, with beard not shaven, and all he said
was, "where is Marian?" and I said, "he left, I
couldn't find him."
He collapsed.
In the hospital
he found that they were returning them, and he left
without telling anybody, in his hospital gown, I
don't know how he found shoes, and he walked from
Klagenfurt all the way to Vetrinje, sick as he was,
to find out.
So of course they returned him there
and I was afraid he'd have another collapse.
And another thing. My friend who was with me, really my
best friend, whose fiance was the blind domobranec,
found his brother. The fiance was returned with his
brother because the brother felt, I can get better
care for him than he can get here with the civilians.
And she got bloody diarrhoea, so that she was really
almost dead .. and I was the one that was supposed to
be helping!
I didn't have diarrhoea, but I was
otherwise sort of distant. As soon as my father came
back and I knew that he knew - when this horrible
thing was off my chest - it started to get better.
I knew about the order that the civilians were to be sent
back next day: Mersol told us, drew us all together,
and we were praying all afternoon that they would
make the right decision. I remember that. To me the
worst thing was when my brother was returned and I
couldn't keep him there, and then my father expected
that I would, and I couldn't. And if I'd known more
I'd have taken him away before then, but I didn't,
and I thought I was doing the best thing letting him
be where he was.
20
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
There was great rejoicing when Mersol said the order had
been changed. Because first when he came, I'd never
seen him so down. As a physician he always knew how
to show faith and either didn't tell you it's the
worst or was giving hope: but at that time he was
really like he had already put on the cross himself.
Marija Plevnik was just 17 at the time, a few months older than
Majda Vracko, and had two brothers with the domobranci, one
sent back and the other not.
She recalls how they, and the
refugees in the civilian camp, reacted:
I
had an older brother who was sent back with the
domobranci. I still remember when he came to see me
and said, "well you're going to follow us.
We're
going to Italy, and then we'll be all together
there".
And then a few days later rumours started
that it isn't true, and soldiers escaped: "they are
sending the whole groups back to Yugoslavia". It was
just unbelievable.
It took a few days before we
believed it.
The first days they said, "oh, some
people are causing panic in the camp. It's not true.
They are definitely going to Italy". Then, when Dr
Janez jumped out and was hiding in the field and came
back, when he started to report what actually is
going on, then they believed him.
And when people learned what happened - it's something
that will stay with me for the rest of my life there was a little church in Viktring, and people
would go there and they were just crying out loud
from their anguish, despair, disappointment, sorrow.
They put everything out from them and just cried,
cried, cried. It was unforgettable, it was non-stop,
people praying, kneeling, crying out loud, "God help
us. Look what's happening to us. We need your help.
You are the only one that can save us now".
It
was
in
a
sense
very
healthy,
a
relief,
good
psychologically that they were able to externalise
their grief, to express it, that they got it out of
their systems, and all the disappointment that
everyone experienced or went through.
There was a
big group of us who shared that.
And at the same
time we feared what would happen with us, because
there were rumours that we would follow, that they
would send us.
The priest of "the little church at Viktring", Pfarrer Josef
Mussger, recorded in his "Memorabilia book Viktring" the
succession of outsiders who at that time stayed a few days in
the parish and then moved on: Italian partisan prisoners-ofwar, so starved they stretched their fingers through the wire
to reach nettles and grass but were denied even that; their
21
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
Ukrainian police guards, columns of Hungarian oxen, defeated
German armies exhausted and without hope, Hungarian refugees,
the British, endless processions of cars and trucks, German
POWs, SS mountain artillery who stationed their guns in the
churchyard, and finally:
most wretched of all, the Yugoslav refugees, an endless
procession on 6, 7, 8 May, with their pitiful
belongings, camping out in the fields and woods. One
after another knock on my door seeking somewhere to
sleep: mostly priests, finally totalling 18, with 39
other civilians, squeezed into every possible corner.
The church was crammed full, with 600 - 1,000 people daily
attending 40 celebrations of Mass. After a couple of
weeks the domobranci were handed back by the English
to Tito-Yugoslavia and thousands were shot.
Before
that a number were married here.
How they sang in
the church!
Magnificent hymns, Slovene, fervent,
then much weeping because so many were sent back.
The parish register lists 21 Slovene marriages, 6 baptisms and
3 deaths. Marija Plevnik continues:
What did we do at Viktring? There was a little creek by
the camp, and we'd go along there to wash ourselves
and we'd go for walks around there. We were mostly
walking, going to church and going along to that
little creek.
And then I recall someone that comes
from the same place as I do, a professor, he was once
in Russia and he said, "keep in mind that we are
refugees now.
Russian refugees have been out of
their country for such a long time. The same thing
could happen to us", and we were shocked. How can he
say that?
How can he tell us?
We still had hopes
that something will happen, a miracle, and we will go
back. We didn't live with reality, we were in shock.
That was Professor Sever14.
I think he's still alive in
Cleveland.
He taught Slovenian language in the
gimnazija.
So he warned us and I guess we didn't
want to hear the truth.
We were very hungry.
I
remember getting corned beef in the can from the
English and something like grain wafers.
Isn't it
funny I remember that?
They're like crackers, only
they're sweet. Then we'd go to a certain place where
they were giving out food, soup with horse-meat,
maybe a few macaroni, a few potatoes.
I came to Viktring with my brother. My two brothers were
in the domobranci.
It was the older one that
encouraged me to go: "you'd better go; you don't know
14
. the Professor Sever who "helped a lot with the cleaning
up and sorting things out" before the secondary school could
start, see p 00.
22
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
what the communists are doing. It's only for a week,
and then we'll come back". So I left home with him.
We were four in the family, one sister and my mother
and father stayed home.
I was seventeen and my
sister was six years younger, eleven years old. One
brother was a year younger and the other two years
older. And he was sent back on a Tuesday, just the
older one.
The younger was supposed to go on the Thursday, when we
really knew what's happening; and then he was able to
get some civilian clothes. He changed and was hiding
some place in one of the tents and so escaped and
moved across to the civilian camp; and we were kind
of terrified because we saw some English soldiers
walking up and down the camp looking for anyone that
had a uniform, that they would force them to go back.
Up to now individuals have described how, confused and
bewildered, they gradually realised the domobranci were being
sent to Yugoslavia. But not only the domobranci: 600 civilians
asked to go with them, thinking they and their children would
be better off in Palmanova camp in Italy, where there was more
food. And the British allowed them to go, although they knew
it was not to Palmanova as they thought, but to be handed over
to the partisans, the very people they had just fled in terror.
Ivan Kukovica, a 26 year old engineering student at the time,
has recorded what happened to his family of eleven - father and
mother aged 47 and 45 and four brothers and four sisters aged 8
to 25. He explains why they left home in the first place:
Why did we feel we had to flee? My father was an ordinary
worker in a paper factory. In Slovenia we had three
workers' unions, communist, socialist and catholic.
He was president of the catholic union and the
communists hated him. He was a visible man there in
the factory and we got threatening letters and were
twice attacked by the partisans at night.
Beside
that Edvard Kardelj, later on vice-president with
Tito, was a neighbour of ours maybe 500m away from
our house. So our family was visibly anti-communist.
But not only anti-communists were fleeing the
country, all kinds of people were, peasants.
We left Ljubljana on the 8th May and it took us five days
to get to Vetrinje.
My parents and all nine of us
walked. We had a little wagon on two wheels, loaded
to the brim.
When we came to Ljubelj there were
partisans, so the people ran back down to the other
side of the hill and we abandoned the wagon with all
we had right there, because we couldn't run back with
it up the hill. So we came with nothing.
We
lost one child: on the way out of Ljubljana he
separated from us and wasn't in the group when we
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came to Vetrinje.
He went with a group of his
friends through Austria and then down to Italy. He
must have been fifteen.
At Spittal I found out he
was in Italy and went to get him and brought him back
to Austria. He wasn't sixteen yet, so Miss Jaboor15
had an order to send him back, because somebody
learnt that he was an "unaccompanied" child. She was
looking for him but he was living with me in Graz.
She couldn't find him or maybe didn't want to find
him. I think she suspected he was with me, because
who else? There were no other relatives. I hid him
successfully in the camp but he didn't get rations,
we had to share.
Ivan left "for Palmanova" a day before the rest of the family
to find suitable accommodation in advance for his father who
was still recovering from an operation.
He continues his
account:
It's an extraordinary story, miraculous so-to-say, how I
escaped from the train.
When we were pushed into
those cattle trucks I was lucky to get into a wagon
that had a shrapnel hole by the door. With my knife
I enlarged it so much that I was able to take my hand
out and open it. There were about 90 people in the
wagon. I found only two I knew, colleagues from high
school, and we decided, yes, we go.
So after we
opened the door we simply jumped out - we'd been
going to high school by train and daring each other
who can jump before it stops, so we knew how to do
it! We were out in no time and started to go back.
It was difficult to get into Austria because the
partisans were patrolling, and three times we almost
met death because we bumped into them: they didn't
see us, we saw them.
We went at night and during the next two days to Austria.
We were afraid of English people simply because they
were patrolling the streets, and I said, "if they get
me I'll be sent back again". So I was avoiding them
- and the partisans because they were still there in
Austria. Once we asked at a farmhouse for some food
and they gave us bread and milk, and at the same time
I saw a small 14 year-old girl running up the hill:
then I asked them, where are the partisans, and they
said, "oh they're up there, up in the hill" and I
asked, "do they come down to the house?", and they
said, "oh yes, they come down twice, three times a
day". So I said to my two colleagues, let's get out
of here. At that point we separated, saying if they
capture one, they're not going to get all three. So
the others went different ways, and I straight to
Vetrinje, but I was too late.
15
. director of the special camp for refugee students run by
UNRRA in Graz
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
At Vetrinje we were only eight children, and of the eight,
all were returned.
Two sisters, two brothers and
both parents were killed.
I escaped, and the other
three eventually came out.
Ivan's mother and two older sisters shared the fate of most of
the women: repeated rape and then murder.
The two brothers
disappeared and were presumed killed at Teharje and the father
died after some days in prison from injuries received during
torture. The younger daughters and son aged 14, 12 and 8 were
sent to an orphanage where they were harshly treated but
eventually allowed to join an older married half-brother living
elsewhere in Slovenia.
Ivan eventually got to Canada and
married a fellow Slovene refugee, and significantly they went
on to have nine children of their own, and in due course
fourteen grandchildren. Ivan gives the end of their story in
chapter 00.
The next account comes from another civilian who was sent back
and survived.
She wrote it only two years later, with the
memory still vivid and detailed.
I reproduce it in full, as
she gives some description of what happened not only to the 600
civilians but also to the 11,000 soldiers who were repatriated.
Pavci Macek was 16 years old in 1945.
She had led a very
sheltered childhood as the youngest of four sisters, attending
a convent school with her 18 year old sister Polonca and living
in a home run by nuns. She and her architect husband gave me
lunch in Buenos Aires in 1995, when she confirmed what she had
written earlier and added a detail or two so terrible she had
suppressed them in her original account. She began:
I was very young, living in the sky, very romantic and so
terribly, terribly childish!
I was still playing
with dolls, not like girls today.
Her father was a prosperous timber exporter and flour mill
owner from Logatec, a town south-west of Ljubljana.
A year
earlier a drunken companion had told him, pointing to the big
lime tree they were sitting under, "remember you and your
family will one day hang here". So he escaped immediately the
war ended with his wife and two elder daughters, but without
the two younger girls who had no time to join them from their
convent school in Ljubljana. The parents and two older girls
reached Klagenfurt before the camp opened at Viktring, and got
places on a British army convoy which really was taking
refugees down to Italy. By the time Pavci and Polonca reached
Viktring their parents had already left, and, when the Logatec
domobranci were told at the end of May they were being sent to
Italy, they naturally offered to reunite them with their
parents. Pavci continued:
We got up and hurried to mass on Monday 28 May and when
our domobranci told us they were off to Italy at
midday and we with them, we were somehow astonished
and upset.
The troops folded their tents, packed
their knapsacks and marched off after lunch singing
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to the rallying point. Twenty trucks were brought up
at three o'clock and we climbed in, sitting on our
knapsacks and leaning against each other. Our route
wound along beautiful roads past cornfields, dark
green woods, streams, handsome churches, attractive
houses with blood-red carnations and verdant rosemary
cascading from their windows. Every time we passed a
shrine in the fields I crossed myself without
thinking. Police cyclists darted between the trucks.
The officer in charge of the Logatec contingent spread a
map out and examined the countryside through which we
were driving and suddenly cried: "we're not being
driven to Italy. We've been betrayed!" We all fell
silent, stunned.
The bolder ones answered: "don't
try to frighten us!
Perhaps they've chosen a
different route!"
That was the end of peace; we
hardly spoke, but were overcome by a nightmare of
anxiety.
After some hours the column stopped.
We jumped to the
ground and brushed the dust from our faces and
clothes. In a marshy meadow at the end of the road
the English started searching our knapsacks and
pockets and taking cameras, knives, fountain pens anything valuable.
I looked at them terrified,
almost hating them. Then they told us to form fours
and march across the marsh. My shoes were soaked but
I'd no time to think about this. An English soldier
with rifle and bayonet led and we continued along the
road and then turned right and were already in front
of Bleiburg station.
I caught sight of caps with
five-pointed red stars and heard shouts and muffled
growls.
The English had betrayed us and handed us over to the
partisans, the communists!
I stared backward with
astonishment.
It seemed impossible our troops were
still here.
Was I dreaming?
I can't describe the
horror, grief and disgust they showed. I felt I was
looking into the dark eyes of a mortally wounded deer
my father once shot. Although they were not crying,
it seemed as if tears were flowing down their cheeks.
They crammed us into filthy, suffocating cattle wagons and
it flashed through my mind: "but we're not animals!"
Then they closed the doors and we found ourselves in
almost complete darkness.
My eyes soon grew
accustomed to it and distinguished individual faces.
The train moved. After a long and painful silence a
powerfully built older man groaned: "I've been in
many fights and faced many dangers, but to fall now
into the hands of the enemy in such a shameful and
deceitful way, unworthy of a decent fighter!"
We tore up our identity cards and photographs and all the
keepsakes dear to us, reminding us of home and loved
26
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
ones.
Someone removed a bolt from the latticed
window and a shaft of light flashed into the wagon.
In one corner a young lieutenant held a photo,
hesitated, was about to tear it up, then quickly
wrote a message on it, turned and said, "my dear,
would you do me a favour, possibly a last one?
As
you're a child they won't do anything to you. When
you get back home, give this picture to my fiancee".
Tears choked me but I nodded agreement, took the
picture and guarded it as a holy relic.
No one tried to escape. We all sat dejected, depressed,
absorbed in our thoughts, shocked, hypnotised,
paralysed.
The train stopped and partisans climbed
in, shouting and cursing, and took any valuables we
still had, including clothing and shoes.
So far as
my sister and myself were concerned, I think we had a
special angel who guarded us because nobody touched
us; there was also a woman with a baby she was
breast-feeding, and I don't remember them touching
her.
At two-thirty that night we disembarked and
went under a strong guard of Russians and Mongolians
to some school or barracks outside Slovenj Gradec. I
was terrified when I heard an unknown language and
saw dark figures with tommy-guns and machine-guns at
the end of the path.
Once in the building they put us in separate rooms domobranci and male and women civilians - and set
guards at the doors. We had to take it in turns to
go to the lavatory and the washroom so as not to meet
up with the others.
Eventually my sister and I
succeeded in escaping along the passage past the
guards and after a long search found the Logatec
domobranci.
We were happy we were all still alive
and offered them everything we had to eat, but they
would only accept cigarettes. They were still brave,
putting their trust in God. We went back.
We were held there three days. A couple of times we were
given a strange-looking soup and something like
coffee.
Short and thick-set partisan women came,
looked at us as if we were wild animals in cages and
took any shoes or mountaineering boots that caught
their fancy.
Every day some domobranci were driven
off from the building.
We watched through the
windows, a woman catching sight of her husband, a
child her father, a girl her boy. They heard cries
and smothered weeping. Partisans threatened to shoot
at once if they saw us again at the windows.
On the third day we left with the rest of the domobranci,
after Slovene partisans had taken us over from the
Serbs. We waited in line in a passage and listened
to footsteps and screaming. Domobranci were running
down the stairs with partisans chasing and mocking
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JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
and striking them with belts and guns so that they
stumbled, fell, picked themselves up and again rushed
on.
It was terrible and my sister burst into
convulsive sobs, but the girls quietened her, "don't
cry! We mustn't show it hurts or let them enjoy our
suffering".
We controlled ourselves and passed our
mockers calmly and proudly when they jeered at us.
We waited a long time at the station, wretched and
miserable hunched on knapsacks and cases, and they
again interrogated us, jeered and took photos.
It
was dark when we mounted the wagons.
We got down from the wagons at Mislinje, where the railway
ended, and marched up the valley in thick darkness.
I slipped and fell on the damp grass. A fire burnt
at the edge and cast ghastly shadows on the meadow.
I thought we were going to die there.
In the
darkness someone shrieked the command, "on the road!"
and we ran uphill, but another partisan chased us
back. We huddled together like lost sheep terrified
by wolves.
Along the road they drove near us some
domobranci who were rushing past and we had to
follow.
The guards' command sounded harshly, "In
ranks of eight!"
We got ourselves in order somehow
as the road narrowed.
I unexpectedly slid over the edge of the road and just
saved myself from falling, but had to stop and caused
confusion in the rank. A guard cursed and fumed. My
legs trembled from tiredness and terror, as if filled
with lead, so that I simply couldn't move. I cried
to my sister, "I'm finished!" - "you must continue,
you can't stop here or they'll kill you!
Give me
your bundle!
Keep going, you can do it!"
This
spurred me on, I clenched my teeth and forced myself
forward.
The straps of my rucksack were cutting my
shoulders but I wasn't sweating and didn't want to
give in. The moon shone through the clouds and lit
up a ruined bridge. I stumbled on the sharp stones,
almost fell and saw dark stains on the ground: "what
is this? Blood?" Oh horror, it really was the blood
of our wretched sufferers.
We were so tired that
while we were walking I slept, just slept a little.
At three in the morning we reached a railway station
and found we'd walked eighteen kilometres. That was
the most terrible night for me. Soon I was relieved
to climb into a wagon, put my head on my rucksack and
instantly fell asleep.
We were woken by shrieks and frenzied beatings on the
doors.
They were opened and the sun poured in
harshly, blinding us.
Only cries and shooting - a
day of judgment. My sister whispered in my ear, "do
your act of contrition, our end has come!"
We were
made to stand on one side of the road, the domobranci
on the other, while partisans on handsome, fiery
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horses, with bloodthirsty grins on their faces chased
our lads back and forth.
They beat them over the
heads and ordered them to undo and throw away their
belts and lie on the ground, and walked their horses
over them. Then they had them get up again and run
forward, all the time flogging them.
When a sick
soldier was too slow, they drew their revolvers,
aimed and shot him.
We reached Teharje, an hour from Celje, that evening after
been made to run forward, go back, stop and go
forward again.
We were worn down by our rucksacks
and staggered.
We started throwing away in the
ditches food, boots, clothes and then whole rucksacks
and suitcases. Some partisans noticed and took pity
and sent some of the worst injured lads to help us.
A fellow villager, his forehead streaked with strands
of hair glued down by sweat and clotted blood, came
to my aid. Parched, cracked lips begged for water.
We reached the brow of the hill - wire fences, guards and
barracks with pine trees and spruces on all sides and
a second hill beyond, with a view opening onto broad
fields to the north, but only barracks to the south.
We entered the camp and were received by harsh
stones
underfoot
and
hostile,
rough-mannered,
spiteful faces. For the last time we were plundered
for gold, watches, purses, money and documents; they
said we wouldn't be needing them any more and took
everything.
They locked us in the barracks; in the
room where my sister and I were put there were wooden
bunk beds, a table and a broken-down wardrobe. The
lads were crammed into a space between two barracks
fenced off with a high wire mesh.
Everything had
been taken from them and some were down to their
bathing drawers or underpants.
The first day we were given no food at all, the next
afternoon a little bitter beetroot soup, which even
pigs would have rejected.
I craved for potato
peelings. The sixth day they gave us a small, thin
piece of ration bread.
How delighted we were with
this!
Now and then we succeeded in throwing some
morsel or cigarette to the lads, even when we
ourselves were starving, and a couple of times were
able to give our ration to someone who ate it up
eagerly.
In spite of the hunger I felt I couldn't
eat and was continually weeping.
We were only allowed a few minutes at a fixed time in the
lavatory and the wash-room, so there was often an
intolerable stench in our room. We lay on the floor
as the bugs weren't so bad there; there were lice
also, and we itched and it hurt like hell. Every day
the military came, questioning and promising some
people they'd be going home soon and then sneering
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and mocking at us, the domobranci and the bishop16.
We often had to go for interrogation, and again
questions, gibes, scolding, threats. The weaker soon
broke down.
When we got up we were faint from
weakness.
A partisan from Stajerska, whose father
we'd called by name, brought us bread from time to
time; and the partisan in charge of the wash-room
once or twice gave my sister bread. How grateful we
were!
It was terrible when they took the children under fourteen
away from their mothers, to send to the boarding
school at Celje, saying they were innocent. The
mothers wept and begged, and the children even more,
especially the smaller ones. It would have melted a
stone, but not those people.
That was nothing to
what the domobranci suffered. There was no pity for
them.
They sat for three weeks on the hard stone
with the sun burning them mercilessly during the day.
At night, poorly dressed and without other covering,
they were stiff with cold. They got up and lay down
only in response to commands. A terrible punishment
followed if a guard noticed someone talking with us.
I don't know how they survived. God alone supported
them with his mercy.
They came at night suddenly, shouting and with a list of
names, "the name we call, come here."
They didn't
call my sister and me, so we remained there. Another
day they said, "those with a brother or fiance or
father in the domobranci, come here" and I said to my
sister, "I'll go because it's so terrible here", but
she said, "we stay here, just be quiet."
So we
remained, while all those civilians were murdered
too.
They already started taking them away after a few days.
They twice drove off about eighty women. One said,
"thank God they left you behind." Earlier ten of the
lads escaped during the night. They killed three of
them at once and others later, but two succeeded in
reaching Monigo camp17.
The partisans were furious
and took it out on the rest of the domobranci,
beating them up and continually inventing new forms
of torture. We saw all this through the window and
wept.
Afterwards the windows had to be kept closed
and we didn't dare stand near them.
I heard late
into the night the cries of lads who'd gone mad,
probably because they'd been beaten up so badly.
On
Saturday 7th July they discharged the surviving
civilians from the camp after six weeks of suffering,
16
. Gregorij Rozman, Bishop of
leader of the anti-communist Slovenes
17
. in north-east Italy
30
Ljubljana
and
spiritual
JOHN CORSELLIS 2010 – SLOVENIAN PHOENIX
saying we'd been punished and so they were sending us
home, where a people's court would try us for all our
offences and our treachery. I didn't believe we were
going home and thought they were taking us to prison
in Ljubljana, and so the journey was painful and
hard.
Our train halted outside Ljubljana station.
During the
brief stop the Pozarj girls from Most and the two of
us got down from the open wagon cautiously and,
because there didn't seem to be any military guards
around, step by step crossed the railway lines. We
reached the first gardens and houses quickly and then
started running as fast as we could. We were feeble
and half-starved, but fear and the hope of escape
gave us strength and energy.
Out of breath, we
reached the home of our fellow-sufferers and fell
asleep at once.
Next morning we bid the girls and their kind parents
farewell and boarded a tram to Krek Domestic Science
School, where we'd lived with the School Sisters
during the war.
There were soldiers with rifles and
red stars in their caps all round the building!
Where now?
Not Logatec, because our family was no
longer there; then to our favourite aunt in the
suburb Bezigrad. In spite of the danger and her fear
she gave us a warm welcome and deloused us, and we
stayed a few weeks while still weak from fever and
our wanderings.
I was terrified every time a car
made a noise in front of the building.
Our aunt got in touch with our parents in Treviso camp in
Italy through a friend of our father in Trieste. Then
we obtained a doctor's certificate that I needed to
visit the seaside for convalescence and that as a
minor I needed my sister to escort me. With this we
got legal travel documents and left by train.
We
altered our appearance as we had to travel through
Logatec, and we saw father's saw-mill and flour-mill
from the train. Our oldest sister was waiting for us
in Trieste, and on the 11th August we joyfully hugged
our dear ones and friends from Logatec in Monigo camp
near Treviso.
It was four days after the repatriations started before
Pernisek fully accepted that the British had been deceiving
them:
Monday 28th May. We can't believe it, nobody can believe
it. The English are handing over Serbian and Slovene
domobranci to Tito's partisans at Podrozca station.
Not to Italy: to Yugoslavia, into the hands of the
communists they've sent them.
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32