Gramozna jama (‘gravel pit’)

Gramozna jama in Ljubljana is the place where the Italian occupying forces in the years 1942 and 1943 shot Slovenian hostages. This is a symbolic location and arguably the most emblematic proof of the cruelty of Italian occupation of Slovenia during the Second World War, where dozens of hostages were executed. Among them was Slovenian painter Hinko Smrekar. The hostages to be shot were picked at random from those arrested during the patrols of Italian military patrol units, without trial, without any proven guilt, merely based on the ‘justification’ that ‘they are most certainly guilty of communist activity since in the prescribed time period of 48 hours no perpetrators of resistance actions were discovered’. The members of regular Italian military shot the hostages in the Gramozna jama gravel pit and near Tomačevo. In 2003, Gramozna jama with its monumental group (by architect Vinko Glanz) and Hostage Memorial (by Borisa Kalina) was proclaimed a locally important cultural monument.

 

Source and further reading (in Slovene): http://sl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gramozna_jama,_Ljubljana

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