Leše () is a

village A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town (although the word is often used to describe both hamlets and smaller towns), with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to ...

in the hills southwest of

Prevalje Prevalje (; German: ''Prävali'') is a settlement in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Prevalje. It lies in the traditional Slovenian province of Carinthia. Prevalje lies in a valley where the Meža River emerges from a na ...

in the

Carinthia Carinthia (german: Kärnten ; sl, Koroška ) is the southernmost States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The main language is German language, German. Its regional dialects belong to t ...

region in northern

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 ...

Mass graves

Leše is the site of two known

mass graves A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, 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 executi ...

from the period immediately after the Second World War. They are located west of the settlement on the Prist farm, where the Leše coal mine ran under the property, causing many sinkholes in the area. They contain the remains of about 100 Austrian citizens (including ethnic Slovenes) as well as an unknown number of Slovene citizens from the

Meža The Meža ( Slovene) or Mieß (German; ) is a river in the Austrian state of Carinthia and in Slovenia, a right tributary of the Drava. It is long, of which are in Slovenia. Its catchment area is , of which in Slovenia. Name The Meža River w ...

Valley that were murdered on 21 and 22 May 1945. The Leše 1 Mass Grave ( sl, Grobišče Leše 1)—also known as the Veržun Woods Mass Grave (), Janž Cave Mass Grave (), and Gustav Mine Mass Grave ()—is located south of Saint Anne's Church. The Leše 2 Mass Grave () is also known as the Veržun Woods Mass Grave (). It is located south of Saint Anne's Church.

Churches

Above the settlement to the northwest are a pair of

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

es, built side by side in the mid-15th century. One is dedicated to

Saint Anne According to Christian apocryphal and Islamic tradition, Saint Anne was the mother of Mary and the maternal grandmother of Jesus. Mary's mother is not named in the canonical gospels. In writing, Anne's name and that of her husband Joachim come o ...

and the other to

Saint Wolfgang Saint Wolfgang of Regensburg ( la, Wolfgangus; 934 – October 31, 994 AD) was bishop of Regensburg in Bavaria from Christmas 972 until his death. He is a saint of the Catholic (canonized in 1052) and Eastern Orthodox churches. He is regarded ...

. Both belong to the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of Prevalje.Slovenian Ministry of Culture register of national heritage
reference numbers 3281 & 3282

References

External links

Populated places in the Municipality of Prevalje {{Prevalje-geo-stub