Franja Partisan Hospital: Concealed Medical Care, 1943–1945

In autumn 1943, after Italy’s surrender, partisan medical posts around Cerkno were temporarily housed in isolated farmhouses. A subsequent German offensive made it difficult for units to move with their wounded. The resistance needed a place where severely wounded patients could remain without exposing the hospital. The Pasice Gorge near Dolenji Novaki, in present-day Slovenia, became the site under these circumstances.

Local farmer Janez Peternelj showed the concealed location to doctor Viktor Volčjak, who supervised construction of the first wooden cabin in November 1943. The first wounded patients entered it on December 23. Franja Partisan Hospital began receiving patients with basic facilities, and construction continued until May 1945.

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The hospital was later named after doctor Franja Bojc. She succeeded Volčjak in January 1944 and managed the hospital for an extended period; she later became known as Bojc-Bidovec. The hospital belonged to the local partisan medical network and treated both wounds and illness among patients of different nationalities.

Continuing care depended on transport and supplies provided by villagers. Building materials were carried into the gorge on people’s shoulders, and food, medicines and medical supplies had to keep arriving. In spring 1944, Allied airdrops began supplementing local supplies. The hospital relied both on staff inside the gorge and on people outside who carried the wounded, gathered supplies and kept its location secret.

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The narrow Pasice Gorge had high, steep rock walls and dense forest that screened the view. Wooden cabins were added in stages to house wards, an operating room, medicine storage, a kitchen, care for disabled patients and staff accommodation. X-ray equipment and a small generating facility were installed later. Buildings fitted closely to the terrain, forming a place where medical care and daily life could continue.

Keeping patients safe required concealing the hospital from distant observers. Patients were blindfolded and brought in by hospital staff. Branches covered cabin roofs, and exterior surfaces were camouflaged in colours resembling rocks and shadows. The rushing stream masked some of the hospital’s sounds, while cliffs and vegetation helped disperse smoke. Bringing patients in, constructing cabins and cooking all had to satisfy both medical and concealment requirements.

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Surgeon Franci Derganc led a mobile surgical team that worked across several partisan hospitals and operated repeatedly at Franja. His operative records and personal notes show that procedures included debridement of war wounds, drainage of abscesses, amputations and operations on the chest and abdomen. Inhalation, intravenous and local anaesthesia were used. Nursing staff assisted with anaesthesia care and instruments.

Medical historian Dubravko Habek identified 255 surgical procedures in the surviving records, covering September 23, 1944, to April 1945; records from the final four months were more fragmentary. The count included debridement, drainage, immobilisation and various operations. Boiling instruments and treating surgical linen with steam show efforts to maintain cleanliness and conduct surgery under basic conditions.

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Trained medical personnel were scarce. Nursing assistants who had received instruction worked alongside seamstresses, carpenters, guards and others. Bojc and Derganc taught courses for nursing assistants, passing medical knowledge to workers who had not originally been healthcare professionals. Treatment, learning and daily maintenance took place within the same small complex.

The surviving memorandum on required reports lists eleven categories, specifying who prepared each report, its recipient and its frequency. Patient numbers and deaths were reported weekly, with separate lists of admissions, discharges and deaths. Regular clinical reports, monthly records and personnel files were also required. Repeated references to the Ninth Corps’ medical department show the concealed hospital’s administrative connections with the wider military medical system.

The fortnightly report dated February 22, 1945, provides a further view of this administration. Its table distinguishes wounded patients, other patients and disabled people, and records arrivals, departures, deaths, beds and inpatient days. It also includes infectious-disease categories. The hospital administrator and political commissar signed at the end. Written records brought personnel and clinical information together for handovers inside the hospital and reports to outside authorities.

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The hospital took shape under wartime conditions between December 1943 and May 1945. Its operation depended on continuous supplies, divisions of medical work and record keeping. The original fortnightly report records personnel, beds, diseases and days of care, revealing the practical affairs a secret hospital had to manage.

Wartime medical care required moving the wounded from the battlefield into wards where they could remain, arranging surgeons and trained nursing assistants, and keeping supplies and information flowing. The wooden cabins in Franja’s gorge combined these conditions, giving wounded and sick patients an opportunity for continuing care.

References: [1] [2] [5]