Idrija, Memorial Plaque Dedicated to the Partisan Attack on the Italian Garrison

Memorial plaque is made of white marble (80 x 49 cm) with engraved and colored inscription.

Date of unveiling: 4.7.1977

EŠD 19482

Monuments of our revolution, Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga, 1961, p. 258.

»Attack on the Italian outpost at Marof near Spodnja Idrija. Activist of OF and informer Maks (illegal name) from Ledin gathered information about the Italian garrison at Marof and led us to this outpost.

Vojko gathered 20 volunteers and led us from Brinovec hill across the Zala stream and Ledin to Marof. During the night hours between 10 and 11 o'clock on 31st January 1943, we, dressed in white coats from white rags, approached unnoticed the electrical substation, which supplied power to the zinc mine in Idrija, where the outpost was located with about 12 Italian soldiers guarding the power plant.

On Vojko's orders we carried out a sudden attack. The surprise was complete, the enemy surrendered without resistance. Two Italian soldiers were wounded and received medical attention. All prisoners were released alive. Vojko spoke to them and threatened them not to leave the outpost before dawn, saying: 'There will still be the blood of the hares.'

In this operation we captured: heavy machine gun, 2 boxes of ammunition for the machine gun, 10 rifles and more ammunition for them, 25 hand grenades, footwear, clothing and other military equipment. None of the volunteers was wounded or injured. The operation strongly resonated in Spodnja Idrija, Idrija and other areas. As we later learned, the surviving Italian soldiers and their commander were sentenced to several years of imprisonment by the military court in Rome, because they did not resist the partisans.

On the building of the electrical substation in Marof, a memorial plaque was placed after the war, commemorating this event.«

(Jože Hočevar, First Coastal Partisan Battalion Simona Gregorčič, Nova Gorica/Koper: Community of Volunteers of the First Coastal Partisan Battalion Simona Gregorčič, 2002, p. 157, 158, 159)