Vienna -- rural victims

On the marble plaque, beneath the text, are attached 13 wooden apples and a wooden blade of an axe, which symbolize the heads of victims and the guillotine.

In the memorial room, where this plaque is located, are doors with the inscription "GEDENKSTÄTTE". Through these doors we enter a pre-room, which is currently empty, but the president of the court, Friedrich Forsthuber, has announced that in the spring of 2024 a broader presentation of victims of the National Socialist judicial regime will be arranged in it. We enter the former execution yard through the next doors with the inscription "ZUM HINRICHTUNGSRAUM". On the left wall is a large photograph of a guillotine with which the Nazis executed the condemned. In the corner, tiled with ceramic tiles, is an altar and next to it a pipe to which a tube for draining blood was attached. On the floor is a drain for blood, now covered with a mesh — a candle stand. All the memorial plaques are on the right wall. On the back wall are several strips in the colors of the Austrian flag with the inscription "Niemals vergessen".

After Austria's annexation to the Third Reich in 1938, many local Slovenians were conscripted into the Wermacht. Some did not respond to the call, but hid instead, many on the territory of neighboring Yugoslavia. The same applies to some who had already served in the military. Among them was also Tomaž Olip from Sel. When the Germans occupied Yugoslavia in 1941, he returned to his home village and in June 1942 built a secret bunker in Hlipovčnik's ditch. Like many other deserters, who were given the nickname "green core", he often helped partisans, but did not join them. After the betrayal of the captured Peter Blažič, the Gestapo entered the bunker on 1 December and arrested Olip and Jaka Oražej. In the bunker, they also found Olip's diary. In the first months of 1943, numerous arrests of Carinthian activists followed, some of whom were also exposed based on Olip's diary. Around 134, the Carinthian Gestapo filed charges of high treason. Twenty-five, including the aforementioned, began to be tried on 7 April at a people's court in Celovec. The notorious judge Roland Freisler, who came from Berlin for this occasion, sentenced them to death three days later. They were taken to the "gray house" in Vienna, where they were beheaded with the guillotine on 29 April. Although not all of them were from Sel, but some were also from surrounding areas, they are known as the "Sel victims". (Summary after Brigitte Entner: What a person experiences throughout life!/Was der Mensch alles erlebt! Mohorjeva družba, Celovec 2018)

.

The plaque was placed by the Center for Austrian Nationalities and the residents of Sel on the 50th anniversary of the crime.

The room is accessible to the public every first Tuesday of the month at 3 p.m. This is announced on glass panels in German and English on both sides of the entrance to the court.

See the memorial on the church in Austrian Carinthia, Sel - Fara