Francka Zupančič

Memorial plaque for activist OF Frančiška Zupančič, who was killed by the Home Guard on 29 November 1944 in Kleč near Ljubljana. The plaque was unveiled on 30 November 1963.

Source: Vodnik po partizanskih poteh, Ljubljana: Borec, 1978, p. 38.

SIstory states First and last name: Frančiška Zupančič, Father: Janez, Mother: Frančiška, Native name: Vračeva, Date of birth: 21. 01. 1907, Place of birth: Spodnji Kašelj, Place of residence: Zgornji Kašelj, Former municipality: Polje New municipality: Ljubljana, Date of death/disappearance: 29. 11. 1943. Place of death/disappearance: near Klečah, Place of burial: Polje.

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»Frančiška Zupančič-Vračeva had a completely different fate. She began working for OF already in 1941 and connected it with work in the family house, where from childhood she had taken over the role of the mother who had died too early and the father's housewife, on the field, in the forest and around, she knew every piece of land, every path and every hiding place. […]

The day before the burning of the paper mill, at the end of August 1942, she still had the opportunity with some colleagues to attend a partisan meeting in the woods between Češnjice and Zagradišče.

Under the pretense that they were going to tend to the recently deceased Resjakova's mother, the Italians let them cross the mined bridge. When the women returned home the next day, the guards arrested them, claiming that they were connected to the partisans who had set fire to the paper mill at night. Among the arrested was also Frančiška Zupančič. She had to go to the concentration camp on the island of Rab.

[…]

In May 1943 Frančiška Zupančič returned home and immediately joined the work. The Polish white guards ordered her to report every day to their outpost, but due to urgent tasks on the ground, she could not fulfill their order.

After returning from internment, Frančiška noticed that several of her colleagues had defected to the white guards.

[…]

Traitors constantly kept watch on her.

[…]

On 5 October 1943, Frančiška still late at night transported in a boat guns and blankets across the Ljubljanica. After 10 p.m. she locked the house door and lay down. She had not yet fallen asleep when someone knocked strongly on the door and called out that she had to open it immediately. She was scared, but even more so was her visiting father, who was very attached to the child. She comforted him, saying that nothing bad would happen, but even she had bad suspicions. The Home Guard who opened the door to her ordered her to come with him immediately.

She dressed and silently left the house. Outside, she saw several Home Guards waiting for her, some of them were on the neighbor's garden. All together they went towards the railway siding.

[…]

From the railway crossing, the Home Guards pushed Frančiška up the hill towards the Dimnik channel. One Home Guard stood in front of her, the others lined up behind her.

[…]

They were approaching the path that winds along the hillside of the Ljubljanica already near its mouth into the Savo. In the middle of this path, the column stopped. The Home Guard who was standing in front of Frančiška suddenly turned around and shot her in the chest. She fell on her face. Lying on the ground, they shot her twice more. One bullet hit her chest again, but neither the first nor the second bullet hit her heart. The third bullet was fired into her abdomen. It entered just above the pelvic bone, and exited just below the ear.The presumed dead victim was seized by the perpetrators and thrown into the Ljubljanica. It seemed strange to them that they had not heard the water splashing, but they could no longer look to see whether the body had perhaps fallen on dry ground. Lower down along the Ljubljanica, already on the right bank of the Sava, the Germans were guarding the railway track. They began to respond to the Home Guard's shots. Fascists from the railway crossing in Zalog and from the Kašelj bridge joined them. Neither one nor the other knew why or at whom they were shooting.

The Home Guards were most terrified, thinking that partisans from Francka had arrived to help. They left the victim by the bank of the Ljubljanica and fled from the place of the killing to the agreed-upon location. […]

While the Home Guards were searching for Stefan Alič, Francka lay in a deep unconsciousness. After two hours, however, she awoke around midnight. She wandered around for a long time and painfully tried to figure out where she was and what had happened to her. She felt terrible pain in her head. She could not lift herself; she could not even think of standing up. With both hands, she grabbed her head and tried to lean on her knees to look around, but she could not. She began to crawl up the bank on all fours, like an animal. […] Lower along the path by the Ljubljanica, there are more houses. […] Francka's home in Spodnji Kašelj was about ten minutes away from where she had lain. […] She began to crawl toward the first house, which was only a few tens of meters from her. […] But her knocking and waiting were in vain[…] Due to the nighttime shooting, people were so frightened that they dared not move. […]

Exhausted to death, Francka was seized by fear of what would happen to her if the Home Guards returned. […] She thought of Jurkova's house, the last one in the row, already quite at the bend of the road. […] In the last moment, they pulled her into the house. Behind the bend, the footsteps of the Home Guards were already echoing.

In the room, Francka lay unconscious. […]

The Jurkovs did not know how to help the half-dead woman. They were also worried about what would happen if the Home Guards discovered traces of the victim crawling toward the house. […]

Francka was washed with warm water, and they dared not do anything else, and they stayed by her until morning. When it seemed appropriate, they sent for her relatives. […]

Francka's relatives sent someone to Polje for Dr. Richard Gregorčič, who treated wounded and sick partisans and activists. He arrived immediately and offered Francka all the help possible. Slowly, she became aware enough to describe the disgusting crime. Francka's brother Anton Zupančič, married in Zalog, number 100, did not want to leave his sister near the terrible event. In the evening, he came by carriage with a stretcher and lifted her from the couch.

[..]

For a week, Francka suffered unbearable pain. […] Her relatives wanted to take her to the Ljubljana hospital's military injuries ward, but they knew that the Home Guards would not give them permission to transport her through the block. After one week, they finally managed, with the help of German soldiers, to take her along the side paths by the Sava to Ljubljana and hand her over to the hospital. […]

Francka Zupančič recovered on the military injuries ward from 12 October 1943. […]

On 29 November 1943, around 11 o'clock, the well-known military bus from Polje stopped in front of the general hospital in Ljubljana. Three Home Guards got off and first went to the institute for the deaf and mute across the hospital. […]

For a while, Zakovšek was alone in the bus, then they brought Francka as well. Two supported her so that she could walk and helped her into the bus. […]The bus with Zakovšek and Zupančič left in front of the hospital and already stopped after a few minutes in front of the forced labor camp on the other side of the Ljubljanica. From the cells in the 'forced labor' camp, the Home Guard dragged a third detainee: […]

Frančka Zupančič no longer thought of herself. […] As the bus approached the Field, she still said: "For such a great cause as we fight for, sacrifices are necessary. I accept it as many before me have done and many after me will have to do." […]

When it got dark, the Polish Home Guard took Frančka towards Ježica. The car stopped near an abandoned gravel pit halfway between Ježica and Vižmarjami, about half an hour away from Kleč. […]

The executioners pulled Frančka out of the car and threw her under God's 'martro'. […] The Urhovski and Polish Home Guard knew that they had already shot her once, but she had recovered. Therefore, they made an effort to do the job more thoroughly this time. With the bayonets of their rifles, they crushed the victim's head.

Frančka lay under the cross in the middle of Ljubljana Field the entire night and the following day. Only the next night did the Ježiški Home Guard take her away to the mortuary at the hillside cemetery and put her on the bier for the funeral. The mortuary was locked and the key taken away with them. […]«

(Štefanija Ravnikar-Podbevšek, Sv. Urh, Chronicle of Events from the National Liberation War, In Ljubljana: Založba Borec, 1978, pages 313–318 363–365, LXIV [photographs and text below them])

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» Z

I.

52. ZUPANČIČ Frančka, born in 1907, from Vračeva, from Upper Kašlje. On 5 October 1943, the Home Guard seriously wounded her in Polje, but the wounded escaped. When she came out of the hospital in Ljubljana, the Home Guard killed her on 29 November 1943 near Kleč. (Source: Štefanija Ravnikar-Podbevšek, Sv. Urh, pages 313, 316 and others)«

(Silvo Grgič, Crimes of the Collaborators of the Occupiers, 2nd book: Murdered Activists and Sympathizers of the Liberation Front and Other Slovenians, In Ljubljana: Society of Historians of the Slovenian People's Liberation War, 1997, page 385)