The exhibition “Exiles” (“Izgnali so nas”) of the Museum of National Liberation Maribor, Slovenia, by Irene Mavrič Žižek, PhD, will be opened in the Gallery of the National Museum Kraljevo, on Thursday, October 10th, 2024, starting at 7 p.m.
The Nazi occupation of Slovenian Styria in the spring of 1941 was a great disaster for Slovenians. In accordance with Hitler’s order “Make this country German again!” the occupier wanted to destroy the Slovenian nation as an ethnic entity in just five years and completely Germanize the country.
Arrests and mass deportations of the Slovenian population stand out among the most important measures. According to the guidelines for the emigration of foreign elements from Lower Styria, issued on April 18th, 1941 in Maribor by Heinrich Himmler, head of the German police and state commissioner for strengthening the German nation, nationally conscious Slovenes, especially educated people (professors, teachers, priests, etc.).
The first transport with exiles from the Melja barracks started on June 7th, 1941. Because of the collapsed tunnel near Črešnjevac, the exiles were transported by trucks to the railway station in Slovenska Bistrica. From there, the road led them to Serbia, to the Aranđelovac concentration camp. After June 9th, when the tunnel at Črešnjevac was completed, all further transports until July 26th, 1941, departed from the Maribor railway station. In the first wave of deportations, which took place according to a precisely planned plan and schedule, 12 transports left from June 7th to July 5th, of which 11 were from Maribor and one from Reichenburg. 4,607 people were deported to Serbia and the territory of the National Democratic Republic. Among them were 520 Maribor families with 1,913 members.
The Nazis wanted to deport the majority of Slovenes to Serbia, except for those eligible for Germanization, but for various reasons, from July 12th, 1941, they had to deport them to other countries. From June 7th to July 10, 1941, 6,802 people were deported to Serbia in 17 transports. Serbian authorities distributed most of the Slovenian exiles who received special “refugee cards” to villages, where they lived with Serbian families. Many exiles also stayed in the cities where exile colonies were founded. Locals in Serbia hospitably accepted the Slovenian exiles. They helped them as much as they could, even though they themselves had a hard time going through life under the German occupation.