Kucja Valley

[1] The Kucja Valley is the location of two sites connected with extrajudicial killings after the Second World War: the Big Brezar Shaft Mass Grave (Slovene: Grobišče Veliko Brezarjevo brezno) and the Kucja Valley Mass Grave (Slovene: Grobišče v Kucji dolini).

[3][4] The victims were a mix of Slovenian and Croatian prisoners of war from the St. Stanislaus Institute in nearby Šentvid (which was being used as an internment center by the Partisans)[5] and civilians, including women.

Livestock refused to drink from the nearby spring in Podutik and local people noticed that the color and taste of the water had changed.

Because of increasing talk among the local population, the communist authorities first tried to block the connection between the Big Brezar Shaft and the spring with a concrete barrier.

[7] German POWs were then forced to remove the bodies from the shaft on 12 and 13 June 1945 and bury them in the nearby mass grave at the head of the Kucja Valley.