CONTEMPORARY HISTORY OF BELA KRAJINA
BETWEEN BOTH WARS:
After World War I Bela krajina was impoverished in all walks of life. The plans to build a railway connection with the rest of Slovenia and Croatia fell trough due to financial difficulties and in its second attempt it was stopped by Worl War II.
In the following years many citizens of Bela krajina lost its property through all sorts of criminal. Bela krajina started to modernise on 15th May 1923 when a modern telephone exchange and public telephone boxes were installed in Črnomelj, and in Metlika in 1924.
The opening of mountain hut in Mirna gora (photo: Marko Pezdirc)
WORLD WAR II (1941-1945):
Yugoslav authorities signed an unconditional caoitulation after the disintegration of the Yugoslav army, the access to the triple pact (Germany, Italy, Japan) on 25th MArch 1941, and Hitler's attack on 6th April 1941. As a result the Fascists took over Slovenia and divided it into the German area in Gorenjska and Štajerska, the Hungarian area in Prekmurje, the Italian region in the city of Ljubljana and Dolenjska with Bela krajina.
Italian
cannon upon the city (photo: Marko Pezdirc)
The war was very cruel and it finnaly reached its end for the people of Bela krajina in the beginning of 1944 as the region became the centre of the national liberation fight (NOB) in Slovenia. Most important cultural, economic, military and political institutions had its base in Bela krajina. Črnomelj was for a short period of time even the capital of Slovenia.
A CD3 placed in Otoško polje as a remnat of the airport from World War II.
(photo: Marko Pezdirc)
Črnomelj's
first radio.It started to work in 1941.