Franja Partisan Hospital

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Partizanska bolnišnica Franja, Cerkno

Dolenji Novaki, SI-5282 Cerkno

http://www.muzej-idrija-cerkno.si

tajnistvo@muzej-idrija-cerkno.si

Phone386 (0) 5 372 6600

Managed byMunicipality of Cerkno

 Idrija Municipal Museum

The Franja Partisan Hospital at Dolenji Novaki near Cerkno is a cluster of functionally-arranged Partisan hospital facilities located in the narrow, barely accessible Pasica Gorge, which is itself a natural attraction. The hospital complex comprises 13 wooden buildings and several small auxiliary facilities which were gradually set up in the period from December 1943 to May 1945.

Administered by Idrija Municipal Museum, the hospital became part of Cerkno Museum in 1963. A 2003 stamp issued by the Post of Slovenia to mark the 60th anniversary of Franja Hospital became Stamp of the Year. Franja is also on a list of candidates to become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In 2007 floods devastated the site. A complete renovation has been finished in May 2010 when the hospital reopens for visitors.

Background

The Slovene military Partisan Hospital Franja was one of the many field hospitals that operated in Slovenia during the Second World War. They formed part of the widely organised resistance movement against fascist and Nazi occupying forces. The successful operation of these hospitals would not have been possible without the enormous support of those who cared for the wounded, many times risking their own lives.

The hospital is named after the Partisan doctor in charge Franja Bojc Bidovec. It was among the best-equipped of clandestine partisan hospitals, with an operating room, an X-ray apparatus, an invalid care facility, and a small electric plant. Most of the equipment was preserved in situ (till the flood in 2007). The hospital had a capacity of up to 120 patients, and provided treatment for a total of 522 severely wounded persons. Some 1,000 wounded soldiers of various nationalities were treated in Franja and its dislocated units alongside Slovenes and citizens of Yugoslav nations, including Italians, French, Russians, Poles, Americans, and an Austrian. One of the patients, a captured German soldier, joined the hospital staff after his recovery and remained there until the end of the war. During the entire period of the hospital's operation, 61 patients died.

Conspiracy and security were of crucial importance to all clandestine partisan hospitals because, if discovered, they lacked effective defence mechanisms. Most of the route leading to the hospital ran along a stream flowing through the gorge. The wounded were blindfolded and carried to the hospital by its staff, most often at night. In selecting its location, consideration was also given to adequate self-defence in the form of minefields and machine-gun nests, and for this purpose the hospital was accessible only by footbridges and drawbridges hidden in the steep Pasica Gorge. Still preserved in the precipitous canyons rising above the stream are several fortified bunkers and natural caves – hiding places for the wounded. Although enemy forces launched several searches for the hospital, it was never discovered.

Mission

The Franja Partisan Hospital is a precious reminder of humanity and comradeship, and a symbol of international unity and resistance during the time of one of mankind's most difficult tests. It represents virtues that are an indispensable part of the present as well as future relations between the nations and countries of the world.

Reconstruction after the catastrophic flood in 2007

Huge floods devastated Franja Partisan Hospital on 18 September 2007. The entrance to the Pasica Gorge has not been possible and all visits were cancelled. By May 2010 it has been entirely rebuilt to replicate the original.

Some 800 original specimens had been exhibited in the Franja Partisan Hospital. Approximately 225 items remained undamaged, others were only partly preserved or destroyed completely (including the original X-ray apparatus, for example). Idrija Municipal Museum developed a plan for the future exhibition set-up in the reconstructed monument. It served as a basis for collecting and keeping records of the items, and for making the replicas which will substitute for the originals. The reconstruction project (funded by the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of the Environment and Spatial Planning represents a special challenge due to the fact that the material heritage has mainly been lost, while its messages remain alive and topical.

See also

• Idrija Municipal Museum
• Slovenia Partisan Printing Shop, Vojsko
• Municipality of Cerkno

External Links

• Idrija Municipal Museum
• Franja Partisan Hospital web page
• Burger's Franja Partisan Hospital virtual guide
• Franja Partisan Hospital on Wikipedia
• A stamp featuring Franja - designed by Barbara Hiti and issued by the Post of Slovenia