European Resistance Archive/European Resistance Archive (ERA)

the atmosphere was already in full swing.

People were gathering and cheering about liberation, convinced that the war was over.

So my comrades and I, we were anxious and eager to seize the day that we, too, would become fighters, before the war ended.

It was a total illusion that with the capitulation of Italy, Germany would fall as well.

Partisan „hero“ Janko Premrl (Vojko)

The anti-fascist disposition was in our blood.

Hearing the first news that some opposition had arisen somewhere -

especially once these news came to the Slovenians in the Primorje region, which belonged to Italy –

we all were automatically for the Partisan movement.

Not only were we inclined to it, indeed we experienced it extremely naively.

It was a romantic view of unconquerable Partisans,

the same Partisans who suddenly show up first here and then there, un-capturable!

The first Partisans were in our eyes according to our hopes and aspirations. They did not conform to reality.

Already in 1942 there were posters hung all over the Primorje region,

warrants for the arrest of a renowned Partisan of the time, Janko Premrl – Vojko.

Later he fell in action and was designated a national hero.

A financial reward was offered to anyone who would turn him over, dead or alive, to the Italian military authorities.

Despite the large sum posed, especially for the conditions at the time,

no-one was tempted to betrayal or the mediation of information,

which might bring about the arrest or the mere identification of his whereabouts or doings.