Resistance

The milk can has a false bottom. Young members of a resistance group in the Šiška district of Ljubljana transported illegal materials such as documents and ammunition in this secret compartment. They used it to maintain contact with partisan units operating outside the city, which was cut off from the surrounding area by barbed wire and watchtowers. Ljubljana was occupied by Italy from 1941 to 1943 and then by Germany until the end of the war.

The spectrum of resistant behaviour against the German occupation was very broad: In addition to armed resistance, it included, for example, disobeying orders, transmitting messages or hiding those being persecuted. Resistance was also often understood as a national practice. This was epitomised by the governments in exile in London, which called for resistance in their respective occupied homelands. Resistance to the German occupiers was particularly strong in the former Yugoslavia, Poland, Slovakia and the Soviet Union. Slovenian partisans succeeded in permanently liberating parts of the country.