The Pohorje Battalion

About the performance

The production is 3 hours long and has one interval.

On 8 January 1943, around 2,000 members of the occupying army surrounded the battalion camp at Osankarica. The combat started shortly before noon. In a fierce final battle that lasted two and a half hours, 69 fighters were killed, while the last fighter who was wounded was taken hostage and executed. Lorenci says: "In fact, it’s not really about the Pohorje Battalion at all. It’s about an extreme experience in extreme circumstances: fear, hunger, cold, stench, severed limbs, rotting bodies, thirst; there’s no kitchen, no toilet, no bed, no television, no internet, phone, yoghurt or gluten-free burgers. There is nothing that I (we) take for granted. Nothing that would be common or unquestionable. And yet, I (we) make judgements. All the time. Although, we don’t have extreme experiences in extreme circumstances. So, where do I (we) get the right to make judgements? Is it perhaps necessary to at least try to imagine such experiences in such circumstances? Or rather stop making judgements altogether? Is it perhaps time for me (us) to shut up?"

"It is a poignant, elegiac, but also full-blooded theatrical performance, which, despite the bitter content, is able to maintain aesthetic solidity and the viewer’s attention until the end, with a well-thought-out structure and emotionally powerful and meaningfully charged scenes that allow the story to unfold on various levels. Lorenci is able to look at the story from a slight distance, without judgments or a pathetic attitude, but at the same time respectfully and sensitively, without unnecessary spectacle. An impressive portrait of oppression and suffering – but also of human strength – emerges from the effective montage of documentary materials." Gregor Butala, Dnevnik, 13 January 2024

Video

Photo gallery