Huda Jama (, german: Hudajama) is a settlement east of
Laško
Laško (; german: Tüffer) is a spa town in eastern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Laško. The area is part of the traditional region of Styria. The municipality is now included in the Savinja Statistical Region. The town is loca ...
in east-central
Slovenia
Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...
. The area is part of the traditional region of
Styria
Styria (german: Steiermark ; Serbo-Croatian and sl, ; hu, Stájerország) is a state (''Bundesland'') in the southeast of Austria. With an area of , Styria is the second largest state of Austria, after Lower Austria. Styria is bordered to ...
. It is now included with the rest of the
Municipality of Laško
The Municipality of Laško (; sl, Občina Laško) is a municipality in eastern Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Laško. The area is part of the traditional region of Styria. The municipality is now included in the Savinja ...
in the
Savinja Statistical Region
The Savinja Statistical Region ( sl, Savinjska statistična regija) is a statistical region in Slovenia. The largest town in the region is Celje. It is named after the Savinja River. The region is very diverse in natural geography; it mainly c ...
.
History
Lignite
Lignite, often referred to as brown coal, is a soft, brown, combustible, sedimentary rock formed from naturally compressed peat. It has a carbon content around 25–35%, and is considered the lowest rank of coal due to its relatively low heat ...
mining was begun at Huda Jama in 1813 by the Gadolla family. The mine was operated by various owners until 1855, when Paul von Putzer transferred operations to
Brezno
Brezno (; 1927–1948 ''Brezno nad Hronom'', german: Bries or ''Briesen'', hu, Breznóbánya) is a town in central Slovakia with a population of around 21,000.
Geography
Brezno is located within the Geomorphological division of Slovakia, Horehr ...
in 1855. Mining was resumed in Huda Jama in 1890.
During the Second World War, the
Partisans attacked German positions at Huda Jama on 2 July 1942 and 25 March 1944. After the second attack, they used the mine in the settlement as a shelter.
Mass grave
The
Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia The Commission on Concealed Mass Graves in Slovenia ( sl, Komisija za reševanje vprašanj prikritih grobišč) is an office of the Slovenian government whose task is to find and document mass grave sites from the Second World War and the period imm ...
has identified the site of a
mass grave
A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of execution, although an exact ...
with remains of bodies of hundreds of victims of
extrajudicial killings
An extrajudicial killing (also known as extrajudicial execution or extralegal killing) is the deliberate killing of a person without the lawful authority granted by a judicial proceeding. It typically refers to government authorities, whether ...
from the period immediately after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
in a nearby abandoned
coal mine
Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...
known as the
Barbara Pit
The Barbara Pit massacre ( sl, Pokol v Barbara rovu, hr, Pokolj u Barbarinom rovu), also known as the Huda Jama massacre, was the mass killing of prisoners of war of Ante Pavelić's NDH Armed Forces and the Slovene Home Guard, as well as civi ...
( sl, Barbara rov), also known as the Huda Jama Mass Grave () or the Saint Barbara Abandoned Mine Shaft Mass Grave. ().
It is presumed the victims, the exact number of which has not been determined, were
Slovene Home Guard
The Slovene Home Guard ( sl, Slovensko domobranstvo, SD; german: Slowenische Landeswehr) was a Slovene anti- Partisan military organization that was active during the 1943–1945 German occupation of the formerly Italian-occupied Province of Lju ...
troops, Slovene and Croatian civilians,
Ustaša soldiers, and
Croatian Home Guard troops executed by the Partisans,
and 10 percent of the victims were women. In 2009, 769 victims were exhumed from the site, and in 2016 an additional 647; they were interred in the Dobrava Cemetery in southeastern
Maribor
Maribor ( , , , ; also known by other #Name, historical names) is the second-largest city in Slovenia and the largest city of the traditional region of Styria (Slovenia), Lower Styria. It is also the seat of the City Municipality of Maribor, th ...
.
Notable people
Notable people that were born or lived in Huda Jama include:
*
Franc Suher (1861–1944), schoolmaster and drawing methodologist
/ref>
References
External links
*
Huda Jama on Geopedia
Populated places in the Municipality of Laško
{{Laško-geo-stub