Franja, the hospital hidden in the Pasice gorge

A hospital hidden in the Pasice gorge

The Slovenian partisan army organised a medical service for its wounded that involved more than 800 doctors. Its high point was the network of clandestine hospitals, more than 120 across the country, where over 15,000 patients were treated, something that, according to the museum, other European resistance movements never had. Franja was one of them and one of the few that survive.

It’s named after Dr Franja Bojc Bidovec, who ran it for the longest period, and its official name was the Slovenian Military Partisan Hospital Franja. Local people helped build the huts, hid the wounded in their homes and gathered food and medicine for them.

Who was treated at Franja

The gorge mostly treated the badly wounded, while lighter cases went to auxiliary departments in the surrounding area. In total about 900 people were treated, members of the resistance and enemy fighters alike. There were almost a hundred foreigners, mostly Italians, as well as people from the Yugoslav republics, the Soviet Union, the French, and two each of Austrians, Poles and Americans. The wounded and staff published an internal newsletter with songs, stories and drawings.

Open as a monument since 1946

On 5 May 1945 the staff and the wounded left the gorge. Dr Franc Podkoritnik had asked for the hospital to be preserved as visible proof of what a love of freedom can achieve, and in May 1946 it opened to visitors. It was protected as a monument in 1952. In 2007 a flood almost destroyed it, and the government decided to rebuild it. In 2015 it received the European Heritage Label, the first in Slovenia. The wider context is in the guide to the history of Slovenia.

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Is it open? Visiting once it reopens

From the car park it’s about ten minutes on a path beside the stream, with steps, wooden bridges and information boards. Visits are self-guided, and guided tours, lasting an hour and a half, are only for booked groups of up to 50 people. Dogs are welcome on a lead. While it remains closed, the Cerkno Museum and the Franja website, with stories of the wounded, are the best way to get to know it. In Idrija, Gewerkenegg Castle holds the rest of the same municipal museum’s collections, and the museum also looks after the Slovenija partisan printing works and the homestead of the writer France Bevk, two more places in the region linked to the resistance and to literature. Across the Idrijca valley, above Šebrelje, the Divje babe cave of the Neanderthal flute rounds off the day.

If you are short on time, see the best tours in Franja Partisan Hospital and pick one that fits your day.

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