Idrijska Bela, Memorial to the Death of Two Partisans

A tree by the road is attached a simple wooden cross with a roof and a wooden board with a inscription.

Pripoved Vlada Sedeja: The monument is placed just off the road from Idrijska Bela towards Krekovša, about 100 meters ahead of Babje zoba. Just before the monument begins the settlement of Belce, and also on the OSM map it is written Jez na Belci. It is interesting that just above the cross, about 50 meters higher, there is already from the road a high rock, under which is the entrance to the cave Jamo Divji možje. In it, in the middle of November 1943, a few days a group of at least 7 wounded soldiers from the mountain front were hiding, who were then taken to the hospital in Tratnik (see Partizanska bolnišnica Pavla v Trnovskem gozdu, p. 31).

The current monument was placed at the site of the former cross by Miha Ferjančič, who died in March 2023. His son Emil has sent me a record of the story. Miha also told me this around the year 1980, when we were colleagues in Slovenijales. I also saw the old cross already about fifty years ago.

I have also tried to determine a broader context of this event. I looked into the book Stanka Petelina Osvoboditev Slovenskega Primorja. It could have happened around 20th December 1944, when the Germans launched the December offensive. According to the plan (see p. 81) one of the columns was supposed to break through from Idrija down the Idrijca valley towards Zadlog.

Pripoved Emila Ferjančiča: As long as I remember, there was a cross at that place, which had been placed by the locals from Bela. It was a completely simple cross, fixed into the ground by the road. With the years it fell into disrepair, the road was widened, and Miha Ferjančič (Emil's father), to whom the story was very dear, made a new monument. The story about him was told to his father by the Šinkovčeva housewife from Bela.

In December 1944, a group of partisans stopped at their place (at Šinkovc). Among them were also two almost children, and the housewife said they were 16 years old. To one of them, who was almost a boy, the housewife gave shoes, which they had at home. For the partisans, Germans passed by and after some time shooting was heard. In spring, the locals at Babje zoba found a decaying corpse. One was wearing shoes, which they recognized. More details (who or from where the soldiers might have been, how many of each, etc.) I sadly do not know.