Peršmanhof

The Peršmanhof stands in the hills above Bad Eisenkappel in southern Kärnten. Once a working farm run by the Sadovnik family, it became a partisan base in 1942. Eleven civilians were killed here on 25 April 1945 when a seventy-strong SS unit raided the farm. Today the buildings house a museum about the resistance of Kärnten’s Slovenes during the Nazi years. The site is worth visiting because it marks one of the last atrocities of the Second World War in Austria. Leutnant Josef Reischl led the raid; among the eleven victims were four adults and seven children from the Sadovnik and Kogoj families. After the war no one was ever convicted, despite investigations in 1946 and again in 1960. Visitors find a rebuilt farmhouse with a small exhibition on the partisan struggle. Outside stands the restored Partisan Memorial, a bronze group of three figures set on a stone base. The memorial was first erected in 1947, blown up in 1953, and re-erected here in 1983. The surrounding wooded slopes and quiet valley keep the memory of those final days alive.