Slučaj Gornja Toponica: O ponekim detaljima iz istorije srpsko-slovenačke bliskosti tokom Drugog svetskog rata ili o Srbima barbarima

Abstract

The article discusses around thirty Slovenian nationals with severe psychiatric disorders whom the Nazis collectively moved from Slovenia (i.e. the area of the former Drava Banovina) to Serbia in the summer of 1941. This took place as part of a project to deport 12,000 to 15,000 Slovenian women and men to occupied/quisling Serbia. The exiles that are the subject of this article were welcomed solicitously in Serbia and then sent to a hospital for psychiatric illnesses in Gornja Toponica near Niš, unlike their compatriots with similar diseases that the Germans had euthanised shortly after occupying Slovenia. The study is based on previously unknown archives. At the same time, it testifies to another segment of the diverse mutual closeness of the Serbian and Slovenian nations during World War II, which did not assert itself because it ran counter to the prevailing ideological, national and religious matrices.

Keywords

• second world war
• slovenian-serbian relations
• care for psychiatric patients
• gornja toponica near niš
• independent state of croatia (ndh)