A total of over one hundred fifty people worked in all the hospital’s wards. Some were sent there from other partisan units, while others were former patients who joined its staff after recovery. Before the war, the hospital staff were engaged in various professions; most of them were workers, farmers and craftsmen, while some were students and officials. Compelled by current needs they turned into nurses, builders, stewards, etc.
Stories of the staff members
List of the staffRead the stories of the staff
Each member of the staff – from doctors to nearby farmers, who were of great help and support – contributed to the mosaic of the extraordinary Franja Hospital story. Some of them are presented below.
Leban, Pavla
Nurse, cultural animator
Volčjak, Dr. Viktor
Doctor, manager
Peternelj, Janez
Farmer, activist
Katrašnik, Rudolf – Gašper
Male nurse
Šuligoj, Danilo
Male nurse, medical assistant
Bojc Bidovec, Dr. Franja
Doctor, hospital manager
Derganc, Dr. Franci
Doctor, surgeon
Ciccarelli, dr. Antonio (Italy)
Doctor, Š. Stol manager
Mlakar, Metod
Innkeeper, hospital associate
Peternelj, Vencelj
Farmer, activist
“She selflessly nursed the wounded since the capitulation of Italy. She also participated in all the cultural events at the post.” (from a proposal for praise and recognition, dated 1 February 1945)
Pavla was from Poljubinj near Tolmin. Because of her poor health, she had to abandon her studies and qualified as a seamstress. She was very fond of Slovenian literature and poetry. During the fascist regime, which deprived the Slovenians in Primorska of the right to use their mother tongue, she secretly distributed Slovenian books among the youth and taught them Slovenian. In the spring 1943, she joined the partisans. After being a member of a brigade, she was assigned to work in the hospital in the autumn. She treated four wounded who were recovering in an old abandoned mill in front of the Pasice gorge. Later, she moved with them to the farm in Podnjivč and finally to the Pasice gorge, where a hidden hospital had just opened. Throughout the war, she worked hard as a nurse: cleaning hospital rooms, dressing wounds, washing bandages, distributing meals and medication, answering night calls … When she saw how bravely the wounded endured suffering and pain, she forgot her own burdens and sadness. In the war she lost her boyfriend and her brother. The wounded loved her because she always had a warm word and a friendly smile for them. She often sang to them and played the accordion or guitar. She also led a female choir in the hospital. In her free time she wrote poems and stories, some of which were published in Franja’s bulletin, Bolniški list.
“Trustworthy people are of great support in our life. For me, one such person was Dr Viktor Volčjak.” (Dr Franja Bojc Bidovec)
Viktor Volčjak was born in Virmaše near Škofja Loka, into a working family. He completed his medical studies in 1938 and, three years later, opened a private medical practice in Žiri. In 1943, he started offering medical help to the partisans; in November that year he came to Cerkno to treat the wounded of the 31st Division. He was the founder and the first manager of the hidden hospital in Dolenji Novaki near Cerkno, which he named Franja. By naming hospitals after real people he wanted to highlight the importance of women such as Dr Franja Bojc, who cared for the sick and wounded during the war. In the beginning of 1944 he was appointed head of the Ninth Corps’ Medical Section, yet he frequently continued visiting the Franja Hospital. One day, when he rode to the hospital on a motorcycle, he came upon a German convoy heading to Idrija. Fortunately, he turned towards Cerkno at Želin and passed unnoticed. In July 1944, at the same time as Dr Franja Bojc, criminal proceedings were brought against him. He was suspended and detained, but after two months released due to the lack of evidence. In his memories, Dr Franci Derganc gave an interesting explanation as to what may have triggered the accusations. “When I first saw Dr Volčjak at Lokve, he wore a long beard and long hair. This may have given to some the impression that he was a sympathizer of the chetniks and a professional saboteur.” This statement is very indicative of the wartime paranoia. Even the slightest suspicion could lead to serious consequences. Subsequently, Dr Derganc established new hospitals in Brda.
For more on the above investigation, see the publication by the Archival Association of Slovenia: Mateja Jeraj, Jelka Melik, Partizanski zdravniki in pravniki med stroko in politiko (Partisan doctors and lawyers between profession and politics), Ljubljana, 1996.
“The name of Janez Peternelj should be written with gold letters in the chronicles of the Franja Hospital.”
(Dr Viktor Volčjak)
Janez Peternelj was born in Dolenji Novaki to a peasant family. After marriage he moved to his wife’s farm in Trebenče; three years later the family returned to Podnjivč where he bought a farm which had belonged to his grandfather Franc Mlakar. Soon after the death of his first wife Terezija, he married Roza with whom he had eight children. Janez was a member of the first troika of the Liberation Front in Novaki, which started operating in June 1942; it carried out various intelligence tasks and maintained a liaison with the activists. His activities drew the attention of the Italian authorities. Despite being interrogated he did not give up. He was also a member of the village national liberation committee. After the bombing of Cerkno on 31 October 1943, the partisans began searching for a safe haven for their wounded. Janez offered them his home in Podnjivč, where they stayed until the November offensive, when the partisan units, together with their wounded, withdrew to Gorenjska. Upon their return, Janez proposed to doctor Viktor Volčjak that the nearby Pasice gorge was a possible location for the construction of a hospital. This would also make it safer for his family and the patients. The hospital was soon finished and Janez’s house became the main communication point for the hospital materials, patients and staff. Until the German offensive in April 1944, his house also hosted a mobile hospital. Part of his homestead was a mill which served the needs of the nearby partisan posts. In the house, food and sanitary materials were stored and, for the first few months, bread was baked. Under the barn, there was an emergency bunker – a pit originally intended for the threshing machine. Partisan couriers and other units walked past the house. Because of all this, the family lived in constant danger. On the Palm Sunday, 25 March 1945, the German soldiers retaliated by burning the house down and leaving the family homeless.
A few days after Franja ceased to operate and everyone had left the gorge, Janez received a letter from the hospital management. He was asked to take care of the hospital and ensure that everything remained intact. He was even given a rifle and ordered to check daily the situation in the gorge. He accompanied all the visitors who came. In July, when Nikola Radojčić, a former staff member, was appointed as the hospital’s caretaker, Janez was relieved of his duty.
“With a comrade like him I could endure even worse trials than those in mid-November 1943.”(Dr Viktor Volčjak)
Before joining the partisans, Gašper worked as a forester at Jelovica. There, he and his father one day found and took care of a wounded partisan. As punishment they spent some time in the Begunje prison. After release, he was summoned to the German army, which he avoided by joining the partisans. Due to an ankle injury, he was treated in a small partisan hospital in Gorenjska. After recovery in autumn 1943, he came to Cerkno as a male nurse. During a German attack in November that year, the medical staff and the wounded withdrew to Gorenjska. The transfer took place in extremely adverse winter conditions, which required tremendous efforts from the staff. Dr Volčjak recalled that Gašper hallucinated because of exhaustion. He developed great confidence in this young man with whom he had lived through many difficult moments. Gašper was the first of the staff to whom he disclosed the plan to build a hospital in the gorge, as well as being its first nurse. Later, he was assigned to the communication point in Praprotnik’s mill, where he took care of the wounded. The communication point was discovered by German soldiers during the offensive on 17 April 1944. Gašper succeeded in moving most of the wounded to safety before he, his assistant and two of the wounded were shot dead by soldiers. About his premature and tragic death, Dr Volčjak wrote the following: “The doors of death opened and closed behind Gašper so quickly that he was unable to leave us any messages other than his sacrifice which still denounces all the violence of this world.”
Danilo Šuligoj shared the fate of the people from Primorska who were oppressed and persecuted by the fascist regime in every possible way. In January 1943, together with many others, he was mobilised into the Italian army. After the capitulation of Italy, he returned to his home town Sveta Lucija (today Most na Soči) and immediately joined the partisans. Throughout the war, he worked as a male nurse. At the beginning of December 1943, he joined the team led by Dr Viktor Volčjak in Dolenji Novaki, which was preparing everything necessary for the construction of a hidden partisan hospital. Being a professional painter, he painted the hospital cabins with camouflage colours to make them blend in with the rocky surroundings. Danilo was not only one of the hospital’s builders but also a nurse who treated the wounded of different nationalities. In September 1944, he was assigned as a medical assistant to surgeon Dr Franc Derganc. They were the nucleus of the surgical team of the Ninth Corps; other members came from units and field services where the team operated. Danilo occasionally returned to the Franja Hospital. When work in the field was completed, the wounded were taken to the nearest hospital where they were taken care of by a doctor.
Among the wounded was the American pilot Harold Adams; he was taken care of by Danilo when the hospital was evacuated in March 1944 due to an attack. They maintained their friendship after the war. In 1997, on the initiative of Adam’s relatives, Danilo Šuligoj was awarded a recognition by the US Veteran Pilots’ Association for his selfless help in saving the American pilot.
His memories are published in the booklet entitled Bil sem bolničar v Franji (I Was a Nurse at Franja), Nova Gorica, 2008.
“ Franja possessed the rare ability of instilling courage into people, because she was herself courageous and determined.”
(Dušan Furlan, patient)
Franja Bojc was born into a peasant family in Nemška vas near Ribnica; after completing her study of medicine she started practising in Bohinjska Bistrica. When the war began she moved to her native town and established a private practice. She started working with the Liberation Front and treating wounded partisans. In autumn 1943, she became assistant manager at the divisional hospital in Ribnica. During a German attack she was captured, together with Dr Pavla Jerina, and taken to jail in Trieste. Both were released and joined the partisans. For the New Year of 1944, they were assigned to partisan hospitals: Franja to Cerkno and Pavla to Trnovski gozd. Soon after her arrival, Franja was appointed manager of the hospital in the Pasice gorge. For a young physician this was not an easy task; not only because of the conditions during the war which demanded effort and self-denial, but also because of being a woman. At the time, women were far from being treated equal to men. This also became evident in the accusations brought against her and in the ensuing trial in the summer of 1944. She was temporarily suspended, but soon cleared of any accusations and allowed to return to the hospital. Nevertheless, her vindication was bitter-sweet: “I felt no triumph after justice had prevailed; I was bruised, wounded and haunted by vivid memories of my disappointments,” she wrote. On the brighter side, Daša, as was her partisan name, found a husband during the war. She married Frank Bidovec on 20 February 1945; the wedding was in the Franja Hospital.
You can read her memories in the book entitled Ni neskončnih poti (Pisma sinu) (No Endless Roads Exist; Letters to my Son), Ljubljana, 1984.
“There is no untarnished joy and happiness in human life. As long as you live you have to overcome even the hardest things and live on.” (Dr Franci Derganc)
Franci Derganc was born in Ljubljana. His father Franc, also a doctor, was one of the founders of surgical practice in Slovenia and the owner of the Emona sanatorium in Ljubljana. After completing his medical studies, Franci specialised in surgery. He spent almost two years in Paris. In 1941, he became an assistant trainee at the newly established surgical clinic in Ljubljana; in March of the same year he passed a specialist examination in surgery in Belgrade. After the occupation of Slovenia, he joined the Liberation Front. Together with colleagues he treated many members of underground resistance. This required a great deal of determination and courage, as the doctors who helped rebels risked being arrested. He was indeed arrested, together with Dr Žumer, and jailed in Italian prisons. He returned to Ljubljana in December 1943. There he contacted underground activists in preparation to join the partisans. Through a liaison in Kranj, he went to Lokve in August 1944 (via Martinj vrh, Cerkno and Vojsko), where the command of the Ninth Corps was located. As a specialist surgeon he was asked to form a surgical team. By September, the team was formed and equipped for this demanding work. The team was composed of 6 to 10 men. Its permanent members were Dr Derganc and his technical assistant Danilo Šuligoj, while the rest came from either Franja or Pavla hospitals – whichever was closer to current operations. When the surgical team did not participate in combat operations, Dr Derganc stayed in one of the two hospitals performing operations, which he regularly recorded. In a 1955 report on the activities of the surgical team of the Ninth Corps, Derganc wrote that he had performed a total of “416 operations: 118 in the surgical team and the rest in the field hospitals.” The list of operations was also published in his memories entitled Okrvavljena roža (A Blooded Flower), Ljubljana, 2007.
Antonio Ciccarelli was born in 1914 in Novara, in the northern Italian province of Piedmont. After high school in Gorizia he completed his studies at a military academy and a medical faculty. As a young doctor he joined the army becoming a lieutenant; among other places he served was the island of Crete. He was then appointed head of the medical service at the Miren airport near Gorizia. After the capitulation of Italy in September 1943, he joined the Slovenian partisans. At the time, he was the only doctor performing surgeries behind the Gorizia frontline, although he was not qualified as a surgeon. After working in Vogrsko, in the partisan hospital led by Dr Aleksander Gala – Peter, he moved to Tratnik in Čekovnik, where the Pavla Partisan Hospital had been established. After a while, he was transferred to its ward in Jagršče. Between 1 April 1944 and 19 January 1945, he managed the Pokljuka and “Š Stol I” wards at Jelovica, which were under the administration of the Franja Partisan Hospital. After that and until the end of the war, he was head of the medical service in the Garibaldi Natisone Division, which operated within the Ninth Corps. He was constantly accompanied by Costanzo, a male nurse with whom he had established an excellent relationship. After the war he joined the Italian army, reaching the rank of General Lieutenant and becoming head of the medical unit of the military aviation. After he retired often visited Slovenia and maintained close contacts with the former hospital staff and patients he had treated. Once he was asked in an interview why he, an Italian physician, decided to remain with the Slovenian partisans after the capitulation of his country. He simply answered: “Because they kept bringing the wounded who needed my help.”
Around 1906, Janez Mlakar, who owned a farm in Podnjivč, opened an inn in Log along the road to Novaki. Janez died very young, when his son Metod was still a minor; the management of the inn was taken over by his widow Uršula. Just before the Second World War, Metod and his wife Katarina took over the inn, which flourished under their management. They restored the saw and installed alleys for skittles and bowling. As early as in 1942, Metod started working for the Liberation Front. He helped collecting materials and funds for the partisan army and for distributing mail. His inn served as a secret communication between people and the Franja Hospital. He donated large quantities of wood (cut at his sawmill) for the construction of hospital cabins. During the last offensive, German soldiers locked his family in the bowling alley and threatened to burn them for helping the partisans. Luckily, this did not happen because they could not find any evidence.
After the war, the former staff and patients of the Franja Hospital regularly met in Log. Their first meeting was in May 1946, for the occasion of the formal opening of the Franja Hospital. Many of the tens of thousands who visit Franja every year also stop at Log. Katrca and Metod managed the inn until the early 1970s, when this became too burdensome for them. The inn was rented out and subsequently sold.
A few years before the war, Vencelj became owner of the farm Cmilk in Dolenji Novaki, which lies on the slopes of Škofje opposite the Pasice gorge. Through his mother he was related with the Podnjivč family. Vencelj and his wife Frančiška gave birth to a large family. In the summer of 1942, invited by cousin Metod Mlakar, Vencelj started working for the Liberation Front. He helped collecting funds and materials for the partisans, as well as distributing mail and propaganda leaflets. In his barn he built a hideout for partisan reconnaissance patrols, which often passed by before the capitulation of Italy. After the first bombing of Cerkno in Autumn 1943, his house was used as a mobile hospital. In it, between three and twelve wounded were treated at a time until March 1944, except for a short interruption. From March until the end of the war, the house served as a communication point for the Franja Partisan Hospital. All the wounded and sick who were to be hospitalised in Franja were first brought to the house where they were blindfolded. In September 1944, a wooden cabin was built about five minutes south of the house, as an emergency shelter for the wounded in case of danger. It was also intended for patients who did not need hospitalisation. It was used until the end of the war.
As early as 1908, Cerkno’s mountaineering society opened the trail to the Pasice gorge, which was visited as a natural attraction. After the Italian occupation of Primorska, the trail was obliterated for many years, until a hospital was built there.
