Inadmissible police raid at the youth camp – Press release of the Peršman Society on the police raid on the memorial and in the Peršman Museum, 27. 7. 2025
Iron Chapel – 27 July 2025 – Between 11:00 and 15:30, an extensive police operation took place at the memorial and the Peršman Museum. In addition to seven police vehicles and more than 30 – armed firearms – police officers were also present in the police helicopter, drones and dog unit. They did a house search and identification of people.
The Peršman Society is responsible for the scientific processing and content presentation of the museum collection, which deals with the history of the persecution of Carinthian Slovenians in the time of Nazism and their resistance to the Nazi regime. We are outraged by the actions of the authorities and the police!
At the place where, 80 years ago, just before the end of World War II, there are 13 members of the World War. The SS Police Regiment was brutally murdered by eleven members of the Sadovnik and Kogoj families in the attack, such disproportionate and aggressive action must be understood as an expression of a complete lack of piety and respect.
Markus Gönitzer (President of the Peršman Society):
"Such conduct by the authorities and the police points to great ignorance and lack of a sense of a sensitive historical context in which the Peršman Museum operates. In the year of remembrance of 2025, such treatment at the scene of a Nazi crime is a painful experience not only for the Peršman Museum, but for all the places of remembrance and initiative in our country. Can you imagine such a police action in any other memorial place? What does such an event say about respect for the Carinthian Slovenes and their history?”
The Pershman Homestead is a place of remembrance of the crimes of the Nazi terrorist regime against the Carinthian-Slovenian civilian population and of the numerous fighters of resistance in the region. It is a place of memory and scientific research of history, as well as an educational space where anti-fascist and democratic values are transferred across generations and state borders – the fundamental values of the Republic of Austria. This was also recognized by the highest political figures, including Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, Vice Chancellor Andreas Babler and former President of the Republic of Slovenia, Borut Pahor.
Bernard Sadovnik (offspring of the Sadovnik family and president of the council of the national
community) commented on the events:
“As a descendant of the Peršman family and as a representative of the Slovenian national community, I am deeply shocked by what happened today at Peršman. Such an extensive police procedure exactly 80 years after the massacre is especially painful for me as a descendant. I was left speechless and deeply affected by conversations with young people who were present. The police action was in no way proportional to the allegations. I demand an immediate and thorough political clarification of this scandalous event and its backgrounds!”
As last year, Peršman is currently hosting a multi-day international anti-fascist educational camp. The camp deals with topics on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. In the framework of the lectures and workshops, they discussed the role of anti-fascism in Austria and Europe, as well as the forms of decent remembrance, and the organizers pay special attention to the suffering of Carinthian Slovenians in the time of Nazism.
The organizers of the camp, the Club of Slovenian Students in Vienna (KSŠŠD), were given three reasons for the police intervention. In addition to alleged administrative offences in the field of camping and nature protection, the greatest wave of outrage among the organizers of the camp and the managers of the museum caused the third reason. According to the head of the police action Gerold Taschek from the Provincial Office for the Protection of the State and the fight against extremism, the police intervention was justified by the fact that the anti-fascist educational camp was supposed to represent an immoral attitude towards the memorial.
Since the museum itself supported the event, and among the participants and lecturers were also descendants of fighters of resistance and victims of Nazism from the region, we strongly reject such an accusation. It's a serious overrun!
Meta Vouk said about the police action:
»For me and for many Carinthian-Slovenian participants of the event, this intervention was a severe retraumatization.«
Milan Wutte, a descendant of a member of the resistance movement and the president of the second
the Museum's Management Society, the Union of Carinthian Partisans, is deeply shocked by today's events:
“Without the resistance of our ancestors and ancestors against the Nazi regime of sovereign Austria as we know it today, it would not have been. As the Union of Carinthian Partisans, we are appalled by today's actions of the authorities. Peaceful educational events, which are largely co-created by young people, have long been an integral part of the history of our museum. Such an intervention in a historically so important place is unacceptable.”
The managers of the Peršman Museum said that today's events will not discourage them from their work.
Eva Hartmann, Vice President of the Peršman Society:
“In recent years, we have established a highly respected broad public education programme to pay more attention to the important topics of our museum. We are regularly visited by schools, teachers and teachers interested in history and tourists who greatly appreciate our work. The fact that this important work of memory and historical reminder 80 years after the end of the Second World War is still the target of such attempts at criminalization is deeply worrying.” The museum's management societies and the organizers of the educational camp demand a thorough legal and political processing of today's police action and study legal measures. It is necessary to suspend criminal and misdemeanour proceedings against the participants of the event.
The most serious is the political dimension of the police action. The fact that the police want to prescribe to the offspring and descendants of the victims of Nazism and the resistance and the resistance how the remembrance should take place, and that the independently designed remembrance in the museum is inadmissible.
We call on the political representatives to clearly condemn today's events and to make it clear of their responsibilities.
Contact:
Markus Gönitzer (President of the Peršman Society) – 0043 676 87726510
Eva Hartmann (Vice-President of the Peršman Society) – 0043 664 3946782