The Walled-Up Victims: The Narratives about Barbara Pit Massacre

• In Event: Tales, Narratives, and Myths between Oppression and Liberation: The Case of the Walled-Up Woman in the Balkans and Beyond

Abstract

The aim of my paper is to present the diverse narratives about the Barbara Pit massacre (known as well as Huda Jama massacre). Barbara Pit is a name of coal mine in Slovenia where mass killing of war prisoners and civilians (Croats and Slovenes mostly) took place after World War II; over a thousand people were killed there, after executions part of the mine was hermetically sealed for around fifty years (some of the victims were still alive when mine was sealed). The discussion about these and similar events were prohibited during communist era and the theme became public at the turn of the 1990s becoming part of political debate in modern Slovenia.

Author

• Maciej Olszewski, Institute of Slavic Studies, PAS (Poland)