Our region has a very interesting history and there are many places that can prove it. This time, I´m going to focus on memorials from World War II. Small memorials with the names of the local partisans can be found in almost every village, so I want to show you those that are in more remote places.
I´m going to start with the biggest one, the memorial of the Slovak National Uprising on the hill Roh near Lubina. 45 Soviet soldiers are buried there and there are also 14 blocks with the names of villages and settlements of the region that took part in the uprising. Regional celebrations of the uprising usually take place at the amphitheatre near the memorial at the end of August.
However, Roh is not the only place in our region, where these celebrations are organised. Pustá Ves, which is part of the village of Prašník was a temporary home for many partisans during the war. A war cemetery and a small museum can be found besides an amphitheatre. Other smaller memorials can also be visited near Pustá Ves, in the localities of Dúbrava and Dvoly.
A former settlement in Nárcie, in the cadastre of Stará Turá is another memorial is worth seeing. On March 9th 1945, the settlement was completely burned by the Germans. The local inhabitants escaped, but the partisans were burned in their houses. These partisans were never identified. Now there are five small monuments at the places where the houses used to stand and there is also a bigger monument with a short text saying what happened there in both Slovak and Russian languages.
Not very far from Nárcie, on the Czech border, there is another monument, which was built in memory of Iľja Danilovič Dibrov, a commander of partisans. It is on a hiking trail from Myjava to Veľká Javorina, so it is not very hard to find.
Many partisans were hidden in the settlement of U Rehušov, which is a part of Prietrž. Today, besides the memorial, there is also a small museum in one of the local houses. The settlement offers a wide range of options for tourists- a sightseeing tower and a museum of farming.
by Ľuboš Rybnikár
Year 2, Issue 3