Franc Bradeško

In memoriam

"The [ Franc and Ivana ] Bradeško family [at the Štefanc farm, Šentjost no. 47] and [Alojz and Ivana] Jesenovec family [at the Cvek farm, Šentjost no. 22] were neighbors in the hamlet of Zgornji Kogel near Šentjost. The Bradeškos had five children, the oldest of whom was in first grade, and the youngest seven weeks. The Jesenovec family had three children, the oldest of whom was five. Both were poor families that struggled to make ends meet. On the night of 3 August 1942, communist forces arrived, burned both houses, and murdered the parents of both families. When people arrived there on the morning of the 4th, they were shaken by the sight: in front of the burning Jesenovec house the young mother and her husband were lying in their own blood, and two children [five-year-old Ludvik and three-year-old Julči] were trembling and quietly sobbing beside them. The third child, Milka [Ljudmila, 1940-], had burned to death in the house. The murdered Bradeško parents were also lying in front of their burning house; two little girls, Rezika and Francka, were trembling between them, holding their seven-week-old brother Lojzek in their arms and crying "Mama, mama, mama ....!" Eight-year-old Pavel and seven-year-old Marija had fled through the forest during the shooting and burning that night to a neighbor's. ... [Franc] Bradeško had committed a great sin in the eyes of the communists; he had been a prisoner of war in Russia during the First World War and had experienced the communist revolution. When the communists talked about the paradise they would create, Bradeško openly said what it was really like in the Soviet Union under communism." (Matija Škerbec. 1957. Krivda rdeče fronte, vol. 2. Cleveland: Author, pp. 20-21.)

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