Bolnišnica Jelendol, Kočevski Rog

MEMORIAL OF NATIONAL IMPORTANCE

In the Adjunkt Valley, not far from the burned-out hospital Daleč Hrib, in the spring of 1943 they began building the clandestine hospital Jelendol.

At first they repaired the makeshift shelters, where the wounded evacuated from the hospital Daleč Hrib survived the Roško offensive. Then they set up a shelter for the wounded, as well as a kitchen and shelter for the staff.

As building material they used already cut trees, instead of nails they used wooden wedges, and the planks were fastened with moss and paper. The heating stoves were made from benzene cans and were walled with bricks, some of them were brought from abandoned cottages. The shelters' roofs were covered with fir branches, leaves and moss.

The oldest is the shelter for the wounded, measuring 6.5 x 10 m, made from roughly hewn logs. Later they added two more wings. The beds – the frames were raised from the ground and placed along the longer sides of the shelter. Beside it stands the kitchen with a storeroom, made from planks. The smoke was vented into a smaller hut called the smokehouse, where it cooled down and escaped through a vent into the forest. In the autumn of 1944 the operating shelter was set up, made from planks.

Above the operating shelter is the shelter for the staff, composed of nurses, bearers, the quartermaster, cook, cleaner, tailor and orderly. Not even the political commissar was missing. In total there were 18. The hospital was led by a doctor, the longest-serving was Dr. Pavel Lunaček – Igor. Other doctors were Dr. Marjan Brecelj, Lojze Gunde – Rok, Dr. Janez Milčinski – Peter, Dr. Ruža Šegedin – Meta, Dr. Božena Sernec and Dr. Pavle Kanc. The New Zealander Dr. Lindsay Rogers also regularly visited and operated in the hospital.

In the complex of the hospital Jelendol there was also the administration barrack of the Slovene Central Military Field Hospital (SCVPB). It was made from unprocessed thick wood. In it, doctors and political commissars of all Roško hospital units met until the middle of November 1944. Later, a dental clinic also operated there. All 10 barracks and hospital buildings, including the shelter built at the entrance on the edge of the garden, are preserved.

The hospital first admitted the wounded on 6 May 1943 and operated until the end of the war. In it, 330 wounded were treated, of whom 21 died. They were buried in the nearby garden, where a cemetery is arranged. In the summer of 1943, penicillin was first used in exactly this hospital.

EŠD 272

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