14
Before Ralph even arrived in Maribor, the first successful escape had been made. Just an hour before their train pulled into Maribor, Abdul E. Krim and Mehmed Junis of the Palestinian Labour Corps broke out. They were picked up by and joined the Celje Partisan Company. With scarcely a dozen members, the company was one of many across Slovenia where existing Communist Party underground cells had taken to the field. Each gathered recruits, arms, and food, to fight the occupier. Men and women alike would fight for the liberation of Slovenia. For the prisoners of Stalag XVIIID, it could have been a way out, as the city of Celje was just sixty kilometres from Maribor. Sadly, the Celje Company, and many others, were quickly crushed. German looting had picked the country clean and few weapons could be found, other than the odd pistol. Recruiting was almost impossible as the Germans had an accurate census and had conscripted the entire male population into the Wehrmannschaft (military team). A part-time militia, its 85,000 members were in every town.1 No one could slip away to the Partisans without the Nazis knowing and the Gestapo visiting one’s family. Worse were the SS, who had regiments stationed across the country. Backing them were second-line rifle battalions from the Wehrmacht. The few battles Mehmed, Abdul, and the Celje Company fought were more akin to gangland shootouts than military engagements. Over several firefights, both men were hunted down and killed by the SS.2 The survivors scattered, joining other Partisan companies.
A little further west, one group of Partisans survived, even thrived. Several companies gathered together, forming a battalion. On 12 December 1941 those Partisans ambushed and killed forty-five members of the SS. The Nazis were stunned. This was one of the greatest acts of resistance yet. They gathered 2,000 men to pursue just 200 Partisans. The rebels fortified themselves in the mountain village of Dražgoše. The German attack began on 9 January 1942, and for three days the Partisans repelled the enemy; then in waist-deep snow they retreated into the mountains to lie low over the winter. Many civilians fled the village too. The other Partisans in the north disbanded; they had not the strength nor supplies to survive winter. Instead, they would keep a low profile and resume fighting in spring.3 Eluded, the Germans turned to murder. Forty-one of Dražgoše’s residents were killed, many children among them, and the entire settlement was burned.4
The Germans later returned and imprisoned every survivor. The foundations of the village were dynamited, and Dražgoše’s fate announced: ‘The German police are pursuing the bandits, anyone who went with them can expect death. The women and children who stayed behind have been sent to a camp . . . Whoever is with us has a secure future. Those who work against us, will fall into misery.’5
In the Italian-occupied Ljubljana Province, the Partisans were faring far better. They did not disband, but fought through winter. And alongside them were two more XVIIID runaways.
It was Christmas 1941 and Colin Cargill and John Denvir had been hiding in Ljubljana for weeks. The pair looked an odd couple; they might have passed for uncle and nephew. Colin was young, just twenty-two and tall, with boyish good looks. A plasterer from Queensland, he’d probably lied about his age to enlist for the AIF.* John was a few years older. A Glasgow Scot, he had migrated to New Zealand before the war. John had sharp features and a fearsome glare. John, unlike most of the Anzac volunteers, was already married with kids. The two had broken out from Stalag XVIIID and stowed away on cargo trains which brought them to Ljubljana, where for weeks, the pair were protected by some of the city’s residents. Despite being under Italian occupation, the city enchanted Colin and John. It occupied one of the only stretches of flat ground in all of Slovenia, with old stone footbridges and cobbled streets lying in the shadow of a mighty fortress. Its charitable people had hidden the runaways, and furnished them with false Serbian identities. Under these identities, they had watched as support for the OF had swelled in Ljubljana, and a growing protest movement exerted itself.
Outside the city, Partisan bands were attacking the Italian 2nd Army, which occupied the province. Patrols were ambushed, garrisons stormed, and Italian soldiers taken prisoner. These prisoners were stripped of their weapons and boots (and sometimes clothes) and released.6 They helped spread word of rebellion. Protests inside Ljubljana were likewise growing, despite violent crackdowns by Italian troops. The situation was more dangerous than Colin and John knew. The 2nd Army’s generals were terrified, and asked Mussolini for emergency powers to take hostages, attack the civilian population, and execute prisoners taken in battle.7 These powers were not immediately granted. The generals’ fear was well founded, though; the rebellion was expanding rapidly. Those unable or unsuited to fighting joined an OF underground, supporting and supplying the Partisans. Their numbers included a group of intrepid electrical engineering students who ran a secret radio station.8
Those who were suited to fighting slipped out of the city into dense, now snow-covered forests to the south, by Mount Krim. Colin and John were among them, joining a new Partisan battalion at the beginning of 1942. They were among over 2,000 rebels operating primarily in Ljubljana Province.9 Despite the cold, all sorts had come: there were soldiers, tradesmen, lawyers, students, accountants, even a few orphans with nowhere else to go. Few gave their real names. The battalion Commissar instructed everyone to take a false name, to protect relatives from reprisals, and Colin and John decided to keep their false Serbian names. Colin was Ivan Glavić, and John was Franc Rabel.10 The position of commissar was the exclusive realm of Communist Party members. As well as maintaining discipline, a Slovenian commissar had two primary duties. One, act as supply officer, and two, expand Party membership by recruiting Partisans.11
As professional soldiers, the Anzac Partisans were entrusted with a machine gun from the Commissar’s stores. John served as gunner, and Colin as loader. Before going into action, they spent several weeks training, and learning enough Slovenian to comprehend battlefield commands. Stoj! – Halt. Naprej! – Advance, and so on. There were also several rules of Partisan warfare. One was always carry a spoon – you never knew when you’d get a chance to eat. Another was never take off your shoes, unless you were entirely certain the enemy would not arrive.
As Colin and John acclimatized, the 2nd Army’s generals received the authorization they craved. New orders went out: carry out reprisals against civilians, interrogate and shoot suspects without trial, and do not take prisoners.12
The Partisans prepared to strike back. Colin and John’s battalion assembled for their first major action on the night of 1 February 1942 under the light of the full moon. The eighty well-armed Partisans looked a motley sight, their clothes a mix of civilian garb, Yugoslav, and Italian uniforms. But all of them, Colin and John included, wore the sole uniform item of a Partisan, a cap bearing their symbol: the red star.13 Their objective was a quarry and railway platform on the outskirts of the town of Vrhnika which were guarded by a few dozen Italian soldiers. The plan was to capture the garrison, seize weapons, destroy the machinery, and retreat before sunrise. Unfortunately an Italian patrol stumbled on the Partisans a little after 01.00 on 2 February, and fighting broke out. The Italians retreated into fortifications, and an hour of inconclusive shooting went by. Eventually the Partisans withdrew with little to show, though they managed to wreck some equipment, and take a prisoner (later released). The Partisans took a casualty also: one of their most senior officers had been killed.14 The battalion retreated east to their camp, but imprisonment and winter had taken their toll on Colin and John. Colin was beginning to suffer frostbite, and John collapsed from exhaustion. The Partisans left John at a sympathetic villager’s house to rest, and continued on their way. He would be spared the reckoning.
Three Italian columns had set out to hunt down the Partisan battalion. The counter-attack began on 3 February. One column trapped a Partisan company in a barn, burning three alive and taking the rest prisoner. On the 4th, a second column, with artillery, moved on Colin and the main battalion. The Partisans were taken by surprise, scattering under fire. They fled straight into waiting Italian troops, who gunned down sixty-five Partisans. Despite frostbite and artillery fire, Colin was composed. He loaded the entire battalion’s explosives cache on his shoulders and managed to slip through the Italian lines. His luck ran out later that day; the third column caught Colin near the village of Kožljek, and some locals identified him as a Partisan.15 Despite local assistance, the Italians burned down part of the village. Colin was taken to an Italian garrison where he and the three other prisoners were asked to turn informant. All refused, so a firing squad was assembled, and Anzac gunner Colin Cargill and his Partisan comrades were murdered at Borovnica Bridge.