Slavko Malnar

* 1937

  • But the war ended and everything was destroyed at home, everything was set on fire, no land was cultivated, there was no sowing or harvest, neither 42nd nor 43rd, and now it was autumn of 43. Then we stopped at one house from Rakek, it’s called there, and there was already a girl from our place who had gone a few days earlier and there was already a maid in that house and she told us is skuh, she invited us to rest, she cooked us polenta, grits in that loose polenta with milk and greaves, in Slovenia they adore it. And we weren’t used to that fatty food and two tablespoons and you’re full and after five minutes you would be like that again. But the evil was that the mother gave that little brother, who was born in Gonars, milk to him and that was crucial. Cramps started because he was not used to that food. The cramps started and he died a few months later when we got back. Yes, we came home, mom there in Slovenia if she found a job she did, if not then begging, and all the people begged, because I don’t know a few 1000 returned from the camp and all begged because there was no other. And I think the man was just looking at how, only food was his basic of life, life’s need, he did’t think about anything else.

  • When we arrived on Rab, we were housed in tents with 6 people each, these were small military tents, tent wings made of that rubberized canvas. At the beginning of August it was terribly hot inside, terrible heat and there was no water on Rab, there were some pipes installed there, it can be a bathroom but there was not a drop of water in those pipes. As a child, I cried because I was thirsty, then my mother took me to a cistern. There was water that was supposed to be brought by boat and that cistern, it was actually warming up, it was a tin cistern, it was hot, it wouldn’t even be for washing hands let alone for drinking. And as a child I cried but mom couldn’t help. So there were such things, there were a lot of them. Food, I mean when you look at that table, I looked, some Slovenian found that table somewhere, it looks quite decent, but on paper it looked nice and a person could survive from it or with it, and in practice it was completely different because those who had those warehouses, they also smuggled, so by the time it came to the final consumer, it was half less than what was prescribed. And I say that the heat lasted there until about the middle of September, and the carabinieri forced us children to swim during the day, they took us away, God forbid that we keep fit, and where you go without food, no, no fitness. And that smell, the smell of that Mediterranean scent of grapes, figs, it’s still in my nose today, but we couldn’t escape this machine.

  • But I also say on the 26th when they set fire to my birthplace, they drove us to the Collection Center that was, one was in Čabar, the other was in Prezril, the third was in Gerovo and a few days we were in that Collection Center and after they transported us in trucks to the camp in Bakar, because the Rab camp was not over yet, so they took us to Bakar for a few days. In Bakar we were in a former stable with air on both sides of that stable, the wooden floors were raised, they call that stories, and sprinkled with straw and here we are, we slept there for a few days and then they moved us, I think it was August 2, we went to the island of Rab. On the island of Rab, they immediately separated men from women and children and put everyone over the age of 15 or 16 in a men’s camp, and women and children over the age of 70 in a so-called women’s camp. This women’s camp was filled mainly with people from the Kvarner province, because only those who cooperated with the Partisans and even some former Partisans ended up in the camp from Ljubljana. There was a much more tolerant attitude in that Ljubljana province than in Kvarner. And that women’s camp, I say, was about 80%, I think that’s my free estimate, it was filled with people I mean children and women from this Kvarner Province or District Čabar, and there were two Slovenian municipalities.

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    Delnice, 25.09.2021

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    duration: 53:43
    media recorded in project Stories of the 20th century
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Slavko Malnar: surviving Rab and Gonars, the importance of awareness among young people

Slavko Malnar
Slavko Malnar
photo: Eye direct recording

Slavko Malnar was born on February 8, 1937 in Ravnice near Čabar. In 1942, Fascist troops set fire to his house and town. Together with his family, he was taken to Kampor, the fascist concentration camp on the island on Rab, and then to Gonars. With the capitulation of Italy, his family went back to Čabar. In 1944, still in the midst of the war, he started a four-year primary school in his area and soon began working. After completing the military service in 1960, he decided to dedicate himself more to his education. After his retirement in 1992, he is very engaged in preserving the memories about the Italian fascist camps.