France Dejak

France Dejak (20 September 1925, Dolenje Laze near Ribnica, Slovenia – 1 June 2003, Cleveland, Ohio, United States[1]), later known as Frank Joseph Dejak, was a survivor of the Kočevski Rog killings of members of the Slovene Home Guard, repatriated by the British 5th Corps in Carinthia to the Titoist regime immediately after the World War II.

Dejak described the survival and escape many times after the end of the Cold war and he did it in detail for the first time in an interview published by Mladina magazine on 3 November 1989 to journalist Gorazd Suhadolnik.[2] He, France Kozina, and Milan Zajec were the only survivors of the mass killing. They managed, with the help of a tree, which during the dynamiting slid down into the cave with its trunk still hooked on the edge of the cave, to climb out of it and to escape.[3][4][5][6]

Dejak emigrated to the United States in 1949. He died in Cleveland, Ohio on 1 June 2003, aged 77.[7]

References

  1. ^ Julka Žagar (2003). In memoriam France Dejak. Archived 2014-04-30 at the Wayback Machine Zaveza št.50, Nova Slovenska Zaveza, Ljubljana
  2. ^ Bernard Nežmah (2003) Človek, ki ga niso opazili (A Man Who Was Not Noticed, Mladina (magazine), Ljubljana, 5.3.
  3. ^ Milač, Metod (2002). Resistance, imprisonment & forced labor: a Slovene student in World War II, Studies in Modern European History, Vol. 47, P. Lang, ISBN 0820457817, page 207.
  4. ^ Corsellis, John & Marcus Ferrar (2005) Slovenia 1945: memories of death and survival after World War II, I.B.Tauris, ISBN 1850438404
  5. ^ Zajec, Milan; Dejak, France; Kozina, France (1998). Poročila treh rešencev iz množičnega groba v Kočevskem Rogu, Mohorjeva družba; ISBN 9783850135948
  6. ^ France Dejak - Beg iz jame Archived 1 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine, Zaveza št.2, transcribed from the Radio Študent, Nova Slovenska Zaveza, Ljubljana, Slovenia.
  7. ^ Frank Dejak in the U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014, ancestrylibrary.com. Accessed 25 February 2026.
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