English subtitles for clip: File:03 Decision to join the partisan forces (Ciril Zlobec).webm

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By 1941 I was ready. And not only I.

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The entire Primorje region was ready to fight against fascism.

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Of course, anti-fascism was not the only rage in the Slovenian territory. There was also the National Liberation Movement.

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The Slovenes in the Slovenian Primorje region sensed a chance through the liberation movement, through WWII.

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We were always confident that the Allied forces would conquer the nazi-fascists.

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By taking part in the resistance we were faced with an historical opportunity

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to join the rest of Slovenian territory in some new form of community.

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Then there were whispers of the Partisan movement in the Primorje region.

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Ever-indignant against fascist politics reaching even into the depths of the schooling system, I reported to the activists immediately.

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I wanted to join the Partisans. My first contact was with the unit operating in the Karst and in the Vipava valley.

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I presented myself at the end of 1942.

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They advised me that winter was nearing and that it’s pointless because the leaves will be falling and camouflage will be more difficult.

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They told me to come back in the spring and that they’ll be delighted to have me then. So I returned home.

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Who knows if it was just a call of fate, but in February 1943 the Italian army found this group and slaughtered them all. Each and every young Partisan.

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Then they brought the corpses to the cemetery in Stanjel and forced the locals to come and look at the dead Partisans.

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They wanted us to get the impression that the resistance movement was over. They crammed us into that cemetery.

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Just to make a stronger impression they partially stripped the dead bodies and turned them over in various ways, displaying even their genitals.

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This dishonor to the deceased was an outrage to me, considering my classical upbringing straight from the theological seminary -

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that one must respect the dead akin to how they are respected in literary sources such as Homer etc.

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It only reinforced my attitude: I would go to all ends, upon first opportunity, to find the next group that forms, which surely would, and I would join the Partisans.

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Only a month later I was confined. They threw me out of bed in the middle of the night.

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They packed me into a truck and carted me away, along with all the other youths born in 1924, 1925 and 1926.

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They drove us to various regions throughout Italy. I was sent to the Abruzzi

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and I had to spend all my time there until the capitulation of Italy.

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I was surrounded by farmer boys, all relatively awkward in the Italian language,

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even for simple communicative purposes, and it was I who accompanied and brought the entire unit back to the Primorje region and directly to the Partisans.

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Three hundred young men.