The company of Domen was a partisan courier unit, unofficially named after its commander Ciril Šorli-Domen (born 1914 in Lobnik pri Železni Kapli / Lobnig bei Bad Eisenkappel, mobilised in the German army, after arriving for vacation on 26 October 1943 he joined the partisans). Domen's company was assigned the role of a military courier station, stationed at Komelj pri Pliberku / Kömmel bei Bleiburg, with the task of maintaining liaison with Boj's company and with the further partisan units that were to be formed and sent to the area across the river Drava / Drau.
On 12 October 1944, the company of Domen numbered 15 partisans. The partisans were resting at Apovnik, cleaning themselves and preparing lunch. After being reported to the police, in the early morning hours of 12 October, an action was launched by the 3rd Battalion of the 13th SS-Police Regiment from Pliberk / Bleiburg, reinforced by gunmen and local members of the Volkssturm, about 100 men alltogether. They surrounded the courier company and attacked it fiercely.
Half dead thrown into the fire
Commander Ciril Šorli-Domen found his way quickly, but the partisans could not even break through the ring. The superiority of the German men and weapons was too great. The couriers Jurij Bojanovič and Mirko Zdovc, known as Baštejev, who had been sleeping on the meadow next to the house after the arduous courier journey from Peca / Petzen, were awakened by the crash of weapons and the shouting of the attackers. They barely had time to pick up their weapons before they escaped barefoot.
The severely wounded partisans, especially the commander, were brutalised by the SS and local Volkssturm. They threw the half alive partisans into the burning house of Apovnik. Twelve of them lost their lives in this way, only three managed to save themselves.
After this tragedy, the courier station at Komelj / Kömmel was rebuilt, but with a reduced number of partisans, and the surviving 16-year-old Jurij Bojanovič became its new commander.
The first monument was blown up
The memorial to the fallen and killed members of Domens's company was first erected at the Cimprc homestead on 28 May 1971. On 31 October 1976 it was blown up by unknown perpetrators, and on 28 May 1978 a new monument was unveiled, which still stands today. A marble plaque with an inscription in both regional languages is set into a large natural rock of the native stone, porphyry:
Glory to the twelve partisans,
fallen at Apovnik on 12 October 1944.
Memorial island for Lipej Kolenik-Stanko
Not far from the turn-off to Komelj / Kömmel, on the right side of the road from Pliberk / Bleiburg, lies the cemetery in Nonča vas / Einersdorf, where the initiator of the march to Komelj / Kömmel and fighter of Domen's troop, Lipej Kolenik-Stanko, is buried. He was born in 1925 in Šmarjeta near Pliberk / St. Margarethen bei Bleiburg and died in 2008 in his native Čirkovče / Schilterndorf. At the age of only 17 he became a partisan courier, was forcibly mobilised into the German Wehrmacht, but escaped and joined the partisans. Throughout the post-war years, he was active in Slovene organisations in Carinthia, and for decades he was, among other things, a member of the presidium of the Association of Carinthian Partisans.
The Austrian writer Peter Handke, among other things, dedicated a calf to him:
"Lipej Kolenik was a fighter and a hero because he was a hero and a fighter against his own will and against his own peaceful nature. He was a fighter and a hero not out of joy of fighting and heroism, but out of necessity and out of resistance to save himself and his family. His life and his work changed my view of our Carinthian homeland."
Tip:
The Pliberk / Bleiburg Committee of the Association of Carinthian Partisans and the Slovenian Enlightenment Society "Edinost" from Pliberg / Bleiburg organise the memorial "March to Komelj" every year on the second Sunday of July in memory of the fallen fighters of Domen's company and the late local partisan activist Lipej Kolenik-Stanko.
Location:
Komelj / Kömmel is a mountain range between Pliberk / Bleiburg and the Austrian border towards Slovenia. From Pliberk / Bleiburg to the site of the island of remembrance is a good 12 kilometres walk or drive in an easterly direction.
We recommend:
Lipej Kolenik: „Mali ljudje na veliki poti. Spomini na predvojni, vojni in povojni čas na Koroškem“. Uredila Mirko Messner in Valentin Sima. Spremna beseda Janko Messner. Celovec: Drava, 1997.
Lipej Kolenik: „Znova. Koroški Slovenci pod britansko zasedbeno oblastjo po letu 1945“. Zgodovinska prispevka: Brigitte Entner in Avguštin Malle. Uredil: Mirko Messner. Intervjuji: Lipej Kolenik in Jože Rovšek. Lipeju v spomin: Peter Handke, Jože Rovšek, Mirko Messner. Celovec: Drava, 2008.