The modest village cemetery around the 900-year-old church has wooden and iron crosses, and almost no marble tombstones. This remote place is one of the northernmost monuments of the Slovenian and Austrian anti-fascist struggle against the Nazi occupation. Here are buried the victims of the bloody massacre committed by the Nazis at Spitzbauer in Lom / Lamm on 17 October 1944 against Alojz Zirnig, the father of Spitzbauer's housekeeper, the blacksmith's wife, Margaretha Knabl, Maria Gelema from the Ukraine, who was in forced labour in the area, Elisa Wallner, and two-year-old Erna Schilcher, who was hit by twelve missiles. Other victims were buried in Velikovec / Völkermarkt after the war, and some were taken by the Germans to Dravograd immediately after the massacre.
On the day of the tragedy, locals and workers from the mine in Šentlenart / St. Leanhard gathered at Spitzbauer homestead. They had come to join the partisan fighters present, but were still unarmed. Only a few partisans had firearms. The assembled group was suddenly attacked by the Germans, who shot forty of those present, including a two-year-old girl who was hit by 12 bullets.
The Austrian poet Michael Guttenbrunner wrote about this event in Lom / Lamm:
"Slovenian and Austrian partisans fought together against Nazism with all the people of these places. Here, in the years of greatest hardship, the alliance of two nations was realised. And what was possible in those terrible days, when death was everywhere, why is it not possible today, in peace and harmony?"
Johan Kostman, known as Čurijev, who spent a year as a German soldier in hiding with his brother Jožef, is also buried in Lom / Lamm. They tried to contact partisan units without success.
Location:
The village of Lom / Lamm is located on the Svinška planina / Saualpe north-east of Pustrica / Pustritz. It is a barely visible but idyllic village above Velikovec / Völkermarkt and Grebinj / Griffen.