Janko Premrl
| Janko Premrl | |
|---|---|
Janko Premrl
|
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| Born |
29 February 1920 San Vito di Vipacco, Kingdom of Italy (Now Podnanos, Slovenia) |
| Died | 22 February 1943 (aged 22) Loga d'Idria, Kingdom of Italy (Now Idrijski Log, Slovenia) |
| Nationality | Slovene |
| Other names | Vojko |
| Known for | People's Hero of Yugoslavia |
Janko Premrl (nom de guerre Vojko; Italianized: Giovanni Premoli) (29 February 1920 – 22 February 1943) was a Slovene Partisan.
Premrl was born on 29 February 1920 in Podnanos, at that time in Italy (now in Slovenia). He was the firstborn child in an ethnically conscious Slovene family. His uncle Stanko Premrl was a Roman Catholic priest, and well-known composer and organist, author of the melody for the Slovenian National Anthem. Another of his uncles was a major in the armed forces of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia.
Premrl attended a secondary business school in Gorizia, where he gathered like-minded individuals around himself. Matters often came to blows between the ethnic Slovenes and the local Fascists, and eventually his father withdrew him from school because of this. He continued learning on his own after he no longer attended school.
He participated in the anti-Fascist movement. Through contacts in Ljubljana he was able to acquire and distribute Slovene books. He advocated a policy of resistance against the Italian authorities and, among other things, prepared an unsuccessful assassination attempt against the Italian teacher and Fascist party secretary in Podnanos. Premrl served in the Italian army from 1940 to 1941. In January 1942 the noncommissioned officer and leader of a Slovene circle, Ivan Kosovel (1912–1943), obtained sick leave papers for Premrl, whereupon he deserted the Italian Army.
Because the Italians had burned his family's home and interned his family in a prison camp, Premrl joined the Partisans immediately and became a soldier in the Littoral Company (Primorska četa) on 3 February 1942. He distinguished himself as the leader of a group of Partisans on 18 April that year in a battle on the Nanos Plateau and in eight other successful operations in the following three months.
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