Gestapovski Zapori in Dravogradu

Prison cells and a granite obelisk with the grave of those who fell during the NOB and a memorial plaque from 1958.

EŠD 7459.

Monuments of our revolution, Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1961, p. 208.

Matija Matvoz: Memorial and grave of those who fell during the NOB

From autumn 1942 until the end of the German capitulation, the area of the present-day municipal building in Dravograd was a Gestapo center, where Nazi violence was carried out. Originally, there were four prison cells, and in 1944 a fifth was added. On the iron doors, the inscriptions are preserved: 1.Zelle, 2.Zelle, 3.Zelle, 4.Zelle and 5.Zelle. The last one was the most terrible, hence it was called "cell of death". It was without windows, water poured into it from the drains, and it was freezing. In the first, second and third cells, some signatures, nails and other confessions are preserved, which the prisoners wrote on the walls with their fingernails or sharp objects. Among the writings, we also find Cyrillic, which is proof that the prisoners were also captives from Russia, namely those who helped build the hydroelectric plant on the Drava.

The Gestapo nest in Dravograd was most severely attacked in 1943. Its reach extended throughout the Mislinjska, Mežiška, Dravska, Laboška valley and Podjuna.

On the central NOB memorial and on the plaque above the Gestapo grave, it is stated that here rest the remains of 17 Koroški fighters from the years 1919 and 1920, and 42 fighters, talceners and martyrs of the NOB from the years 1941 to 1945. Their remains were transferred from the cemetery in Dravograd and from battlefields in Podklanc, from massacre sites in the Cernelje forest, in the Dularjev forest and from the garden of the Gestapo torture chambers in Dravograd.

Source: Ludvik Pušnik, Po poteh spomina.

Permanent exhibition Gestapovski zapori: Source