President Pirc Musar points to NOB's role for Slovenia's independence

Our future would have been different without the National Liberation Struggle (NOB), in which Slovenians successfully stood against the occupying forces, so its roles in fighting against the occupying forces and for Slovenia's independence cannot be denied, the president stressed on Osankarica hill, northeast.

She said that Slovenians are grateful to all those who gave their lives so that their descendants can live as a free nation.

Nearly five decades after the last battle of the Pohorje Battalion, Slovenians started living in own country which we founded by ourselves, with the historic support expressed in a referendum and with unity among politics and people, Pirc Musar said.

"Even though we embarked on a path of uncertainty, we were united and aware that as a community we finally had the opportunity and the strength to pursue our national interests and face the challenges," the president said about the decision to declare independence in 1991.

She believes such anniversaries are important for remembrance, while also being an opportunity to discuss the future, empowered by the experience from the past.

"Remembrance is important so that we don't forget what happened, but ... when people ignore the wisdom and lessons of the messages from the past, history can repeat itself and people lose the opportunity for a better future."

The greatest respect for the fallen NOB fighters is efforts to ensure that war does not happen again, which are also the values at the core of the EU, Pirc Musar said as she delivered her first key-note at a public event after she took over as president two weeks ago.

This year's commemoration was attended by around 3,000 people. Among the politicians there was also former President Milan Kučan and MEPs Milan Brglez and Matjaž Nemec.

Wreaths were laid at the memorial to the battalion at Trije Žeblji, where the battalion had its winter camp and which is the site of the commemoration.

The Pohorje Battalion was established in September 1942 on Pohorje hills with 90 fighters, and carried out a number of campaigns in the Štajerska region.

The Nazis discovered its winter camp in early 1943 and some 2,000 soldiers surrounded it on 8 January, killing all the fighters - 69 in action while the wounded one was caught later on and executed.

Its demise was a major blow to Partisan resistance in Štajerska, while a major success for the Nazis, who reported about it to Heinrich Himmler, Irena Mavrič Žižek, a historian at the Maribor Museum of National Liberation, told the STA before the commemoration.

The Germans took the slain Slovenian fighters to be buried in nearby Graz, Austria, where they remain to this day, while a memorial to them was erected on the site of the battalion's last battle in 1959 and declared a cultural monument of national importance in 2014.

To mark the 80th anniversary of the battalion's end, the Museum of National Liberation put up an exhibition at a gallery in Slovenska Bistrica.