Črni Vrh nad Idrijo, Družina Skvarča

Franc Skvarča. Sistory.
date of birth: 3. 12. 1876, place of birth: Javornik, military status: Civilist, date of death: 6. 1. 1944, place of death: Javornik, place of burial: Črni Vrh nad Idrijo, cause of death: Killed, cause of death: SNVZ - German occupation units

Frančiška Skvarča. Sistory.
date of birth: 20. 7. 1889, place of birth: Lome, military status: Civilist, date of death: 23. 12. 1943, place of death: Javornik, place of burial: Črni Vrh, cause of death: Accident, related to military events, cause of death: ?

Jožef Skvarča. Sistory.
date of birth: 1. 4. 1931, place of birth: Javornik, military status: Civilist, date of death: 23. 12. 1943, place of death: Javornik, place of burial: Črni Vrh nad Idrijo, cause of death: Shot, cause of death: German (occupation) units

Pavel Skvarča. Sistory.
date of birth: 10. 1. 1927, place of birth: Javornik, military status: Civilist, date of death: 6. 2. 1944, place of death: Dachau, country of death: Germany, place of burial: Dachau, country of burial: Germany, cause of death: Died in camp / internment, cause of death: German (occupation) units> «First account: Lojze Skvarč from Javornik was tall, a strong man, slightly bent. All the time he held himself in laughter, as if he had not endured so much in life …

He told me as if unaffected, as if he had not been there himself …

Thirty-first December thirty-first … fog, almost no snow …

In both houses, Pr Žaklji and at our place, Pr Škvarči, about 160 partisans were gathered. On the floor, by the hearth, in the stable, some of them were outside … They cooked fruštk. These were the fighters of the 3rd battalion of the Gradnik brigade. The 1st battalion was at Vodiči, the 2nd in Kanje Dolu.

Germans and home guards arrived in the early afternoon, around half past nine. They came through Podjesen, through Upper and Lower Lomes … They searched the sentry so thoroughly that they put on partisan caps. The soldier thought they were partisans and killed them …

I was sitting by the hearth when it started. In the house were the commander Tarzan and the political commissar Saša, or however he was called. A partisan came into the house. 'The enemy is here!' he shouted. The political commissar replied: 'I have no shorn beard!' The neighbor Žakelj was a barber and had really fixed Saša’s beard. That partisan turned around and immediately ran back with the beard. The political commisssar jumped up and with Tarzan jumped out. They managed to escape … In January I saw them again, when they were going through the Lomes to attack Hotedrščica …

Immediately after that, the house was already surrounded. They shot through the windows, threw bombs. The father climbed under the bed. We ran to the forest and hid there. 'Take positions by the windows!' was the order heard. What will you do! Everyone who stepped to the window was immediately shot.

They burst into the house. 'Geraus!' they shouted and pulled us out. At the edge, where today there is a memorial, they had already captured partisans; two partisans’ women were also there. They guarded us. Mother was afraid they would shoot us all, since she had heard what they had done to the locals in Dražgoši in Gorenjska. If we ran, she calculated, at least someone would survive! Suddenly she shouted: 'Run!' All of us jumped at once to the hillside up and down. Behind us it erupted. I was shot in the hand through the wrist, sister Ivanka in the ear, sister Franco in the finger. Mother fell, brother Jože too … Also brother Jože’s neighbor … We saved Franco, Ivanka, neighbor Janez Žakelj and me. We hid in the forest all night. In the morning we went to Grižerji in Upper Lomes …

Partisans’ women were already killed at Javornik … Sixteen captured partisans were taken to Idrija. They took our livestock with them. The livestock also burned at the neighbor’s place.

Germans and home guards had four wounded and one dead. A young man from Grižerji had to ride a horse to take the dead German to the burial site. Oblakova Mici had to carry four wounded on a cart.

The same evening the partisans were killed and buried. After fourteen days they mobilized Vodičarje and Podkrajce, and they transported the bodies in carts, in manure sacks, to the Podkrajsko cemetery …

The captured partisans were shot the next day, on the holy evening, in Godovič, where the road turns into Idrija …

Seventeen of them were killed at Javornik, sixteen were shot in Godovič.

The father managed to escape. When they set fire to the house, a German still helped him out from under the bed and let him down. Fourteen days later, on 6th January, he went to the mother. Exactly at that time, when the Germans had already attacked the 3rd battalion in Trepči for the second time and killed so many partisans. And in Črni Vrh, above the hotel, towards the Italian barracks, they also shot him. They shot at him from the road above …»

Franc Černigoj, Memorial on the Hill, Ajdovščina: Self-published, 1999, pp. 289, 290, 291.Image: Skvarča Franc, Frančiška, Jožef, Pavel Geneanet, Cemetery Črni Vrh above Idrija, p. 28.