Družmirje (, ) is a settlement in the
Municipality of Šoštanj
The Municipality of Šoštanj (; ) is a municipality in northern Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Šoštanj. The municipality was established on 3 October 1994, prior to which it belonged to the larger Municipality of Velenje ...
in northern
Slovenia
Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...
. It lies just east of
Šoštanj
Šoštanj (; ) is a town in northern Slovenia. It is the seat of the Municipality of Šoštanj. The area is part of the traditional region of Styria. The entire municipality is now included in the Savinja Statistical Region.
History
Šoštanj w ...
with much of its territory flooded after the collapse of abandoned shafts in the Šoštanj
lignite
Lignite (derived from Latin ''lignum'' meaning 'wood'), 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 ...
mine
Mine, mines, miners or mining may refer to:
Extraction or digging
*Miner, a person engaged in mining or digging
*Mining, extraction of mineral resources from the ground through a mine
Grammar
*Mine, a first-person English possessive pronoun
M ...
. The area is part of the traditional region of
Styria
Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...
. The municipality is now included in the
Savinja Statistical Region
The Savinja Statistical Region () is a Statistical regions of Slovenia, 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 compr ...
.
Name
Družmirje was attested in historical sources as ''Tresimir'' in 1309 (and as ''Stresimir'' in 1311, ''Smerstorf'' in 1318, and ''Smersdorf'' in 1424). The Slovenian name ''Družmirje'' is probably a clipped form of *''Družimir′e selo'' 'Družimirъ's village', referring to an early inhabitant of the place.
Mass graves
Družmirje 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 exec ...
from the period immediately after the Second World War. The Družmirje 1 and 2 mass graves () lie north of
Lake Šoštanj
A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from t ...
. They contain the remains of Slovene, Croatian, and German civilians that were murdered on the Gorica Ridge northeast of the town in late May 1945 as they were fleeing to
Carinthia
Carinthia ( ; ; ) is the southernmost and least densely populated States of Austria, Austrian state, in the Eastern Alps, and is noted for its mountains and lakes. The Lake Wolayer is a mountain lake on the Carinthian side of the Carnic Main ...
. The victims include a group of wealthy Šoštanj residents murdered on 23 May 1945. The first site lies north of a crossroads. The second site encompasses three separate burial places in the Lep Thicket ().
The graves are part of the same group as the
Gorica 1–4 mass graves in Šoštanj.
References
External links
Družmirje on Geopedia
Populated places in the Municipality of Šoštanj
{{Šoštanj-geo-stub