August 26, 2022
From Dolenji Novaki (after visiting the Franja Hospital) to Sentjost (Aug. 26, 2022)
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Today we were steeped in Slovenian history. After the best farm breakfast of the trip - not to mention the cheapest (7 euros per person) -we rode one k to reach the site of the Franja hospital. In typical style, we managed to get lost but allowed enough time before our tour to recover and meet our guide Maijda.
During WW2 this part of the Slovenian countryside had tons of Yugoslav partisan/communist groups running around making problems for the occupying forces (Italians, Germans,and Hungarian). German soldiers were constantly raiding farmhouses searching for wounded soldiers and the discovery of the wounded usually meant the farm families would be killed. To support the war effort but also to protect their families from the risks of hiding the wounded, the local partisan farmers built a secret hospital in nearby Pasica Gorge.
Eventually 13 buildings were constructed, in secret, and at night, with the construction being carried out simultaneously with the operation of the hospital. Patients and supplies reached the site by a river float to a location where there was a secret drawbridge (really a wooden slab that could be drawn up) and the patients were then carried up by litter to a narrow pathway to the hospital. In winter patients were transported over the frozen river. The hospital served 578 patients between Dec 1943 and May 1945 of which only 78 died. It had a staff of 50 with an operating room and x ray machine (a very rare piece of equipment which was donated by the widow of a local doctor whose husband had been killed by the Germans).
The whole effort was financed organically; there was no budget, just local people that secretly supplied food and supplies and somehow found ways to get drugs unofficially, because the pharmacies were all controlled by the occupying forces. (Later in the war, Allied forces started dropping supplies for the hospital to use). In the beginning there was no ether available to anesthetize patients so the surgeons used schnapps.
The hospital was never betrayed nor discovered. Patients were blindfolded to make the trip to and from the site. On two occasions the hospital was attacked by Germans although the attacking forces did not understand there was a hospital in the gorge, just the presence of enemy partisans.
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The hospital was run by a 33 year old woman doctor, Dr. Franja, who put up with all sorts of hassles by Yugoslav officials who didn’t approve of a woman being in charge. She was enormously popular however, and during this time period met her husband-to-be at the hospital and married him in a celebration at the hospital. One of two pigs kept on site to eat extra food scraps was used for the wedding feast.
The hospital treated one American, a pilot who was shot down. He survived and in 1997 his son came over and thanked the hospital for saving his Dad. It was the silk from his father’s parachute that Dr. Franja used for her wedding dress. The hospital also saved the life of one Wehrmacht (German) soldier who stayed and became the hospital shoemaker.
In these times of political cynicism we were overwhelmed with the commitment, ingenuity, and courage of the people who envisioned and then ran such an operation.
After the Franja tour we had a 30 k ride with some serious elevation gain to our ultimate destination in Sentjost, a hill town outside of Ljubljana, the capital. We chose this destination so we could eat dinner at Gric, a newish Slovenian restaurant that just got a Michelin star. Sentjost is so small there is no hotel, cafe, bar, grocery store, or restaurant (except Gric, which only does a tasting menu). We were lucky to find an apartment at Mozinetova Hisa.
Whereas we had just come from an area around Cerkno that had been a Partisan stronghold, Sentjost was the center of the Slovene Homeguard, the faction of Slovenes who were pro-fascist, anti-communist/partisan and supported by the Catholic Church. Peter, our host at Mozinetova Hisa told the story of his grandfather who was murdered by the Partisans along with all the other men in the village in 1942. In the local cemetery there is a memorial to the murdered Home Guard men from the village. At the end of the war, the Slovene Home Guard surrendered to the British in Austria, who, because of political pressure from the Russians, returned them back to Slovenia where they were notoriously murdered by the new Yugoslav government who were pro Russian. (We could tell that these circumstances still weighed heavily on our host all these years later). He also shared photos of long dead family members who had been in the Austro -Hungarian forces back in the 1900s, and the story of our accommodations, owned by a famous local family (Sentjost) who built it as a farmhouse in 1645.
Our brains were and are full of local, complicated, tragic history.
Later that evening we cycled the 1 k (up a hill, as is usual in Slovenia) to enjoy a 7-course tasting menu at Gric. Everything was from the local area. Slovenes really practice the farm-to-table ethic, but I don’t think that is anything new or deliberate, it's just how they live. Thanks to the associated wine pairing and our knowledgable server, we learned a ton about Slovenian wine. The owner/chef Luka Kosir, is from the local area and much of the produce is from his family’s farm. It was a fantastic, interesting meal. All the patrons at the restaurant were young; we were the oldest diners by 20 or 30 years. In fact, everyone in Slovenia is young. We don’t know what that is about.
Today's ride: 34 km (21 miles)
Total: 764 km (474 miles)
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