Poljana () is a settlement on the left bank of the Meža River in the

Municipality of Prevalje The Municipality of Prevalje (; ) is a municipality in the traditional region of Carinthia (Slovenia), Carinthia in northern Slovenia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Prevalje. Prevalje became a municipality in 1999. It borders Austri ...

in the

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 ...

region 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 ...

, close to the border with

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

History

Poljana was the site of the

Battle of Poljana The Battle of Poljana took place outside of Poljana, near the town of Prevalje in Yugoslavia (modern-day Slovenia) between the Yugoslav Army and a column of 30,000 retreating Axis soldiers, which consisted of the German Wehrmacht, the Croatian ...

in May 1945, the last significant clash of arms of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

in the European theater.

Mass grave

Poljana is the site of a

mass grave 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 end of the Second World War. The Poljana Mass Grave () is located southwest of the village, between the road and the Meža River. It contains the remains of an undetermined number of Croatian soldiers killed in the Battle of Poljana and possibly also civilians that were liquidated after the surrender on 15 May 1945.

Church

The local

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a place/building for Christian religious activities and praying * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian comm ...

is dedicated to

John the Baptist John the Baptist ( – ) was a Jewish preacher active in the area of the Jordan River in the early first century AD. He is also known as Saint John the Forerunner in Eastern Orthodoxy and Oriental Orthodoxy, John the Immerser in some Baptist ...

. It dates to the early 14th century and is an early Gothic church preserved with very few adaptations. Its internal furnishings date to 1640. It belongs to the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

of Prevalje.Slovenian Ministry of Culture register of national heritage
reference number 3282

References

External links

Poljana on Geopedia
Populated places in the Municipality of Prevalje {{Prevalje-geo-stub