Make This Land German … Italian … Hungarian … Croatian! The Role of the Occupation Border in the Denationalization Policy and the Lives of the Slovene Population.

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Šifra projekta: J6-8248 (A)

SICRIS

World War II marks one of the most critical moments in Slovene history. Four occupation regimes – German, Italian, Hungarian and the regime of Ustasha Croatia – divided Slovenes among four different national entities and sentenced them to death, ethnically speaking – also by using methods of genocide. The German Reich acquired the territories of Upper Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, the northwest part of Prekmurje and the northern part of Lower Carniola. Italy occupied Inner Carniola, Ljubljana and the remaining part of Lower Carniola. Hungary occupied most of Prekmurje, while the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) occupied five villages in Posavje. The border between the occupation zones did not follow the historical, administrative or provincial/ethnic border.

The demarcation was mostly set on 12 April 1941 based on Hitler’s instructions for breaking up Yugoslavia.  The dimensions of the ethnocide and genocide carried out by the occupiers is evident in the forced migrations and border crossings – 58,522 Slovenes in German and Italian concentration camps, 688 in Hungarian camps, some 400 in Croatian camps, close to 20,000 Slovenes in confinement and forced labour, and 80,000 in prisons. 571 Jews from Prekmurje were deported; most of them were murdered in Auschwitz. The Germans planned to deport from 220 to 260,000 Slovenes, and succeeded in deporting 63,000. Around 17,000 of them managed to escape to the German occupation zone across the German-Italian border. A portion of the 10,000 who had been deported to NDH from the German occupation zone managed to flee to the Italian occupation zone or got there by legally crossing the border. 17,000 Gottscheers from the Italian occupation zone were moved to the vacated Slovene territories along the Croatian border (which makes the study of this border that much more necessary).

The occupation of Slovene ethnic territory in 1941 created five different border areas and borders in Slovene lands. These were: the border between Germany and Hungary, the border between Hungary and NDH, the border between Germany and NDH, the border between Italy and Germany, and the border between Italy and NDH. Despite the formal annexation of the so-called Province of Ljubljana to Italy, the so-called Rapallo border was preserved, which separated the Littoral Slovenes from the others. Only the border with Croatia, which was based on older demarcations, has been preserved to this day.  The border regimes at these borders differed; consequently, so did the life there. Some of the borders were much more fortified than others, for they had minefields, barbed wire fences, stations with machine guns, etc. Often all the buildings near the border were torn down and the forest thinned to enable greater control of both sides of the border. This was mostly carried out with forced labour, which involved the local population. The formation of these borders was accompanied by war violence, deportation of population, desertion or migration from one occupation zone to another (Gottscheers); simultaneously, due to vital necessity and the partisan resistance (which did not acknowledge this breakup and fought against it), illegal border crossings were being established. All of this inevitably resulted in many traumas and severed the traditional patterns of migrations, agriculture and commerce.

These traumas were only partly researched in the past. One prominent example is the discussion of the border with NDH, which was almost entirely ignored to avoid conflicts in the multinational post-war Yugoslavia. The local population on both sides of the border continued to feel hurt and has passed this on to younger generations and to the collective memory of both nations. This is corroborated by the fact that over 70 years after the end of the war, Slovenia and Croatia are still unable to reach an agreement on the final location of the borderline.