Peterka was captured by the Italians at age 17 in a general raid on June 29, 1942, and sent to the Gonars concentration camp.
At the end of the war, in May 1945, he retreated with other Home Guard members to Carinthia, from where he was returned from the camp at Viktring by the British and handed over to Yugoslavia.
[5] Peterka was murdered in 1945, barely 20 years old, in the Kočevje Rog massacres, and his body was thrown into one of the caves there.
Peterka, like the poet France Balantič, was suppressed under the postwar communist authorities, although his lyrics had exceptional artistic value.
In Buenos Aires, emigrants with the help of Uroš Žitnik,[4] who sent the poems to Argentina, printed seven of Peterko's poems in 1977: "Adventum" (Advent), "Pomlad" (Spring), "Tihožitje" (Still Life), "Obeti" (Promises), "Smrti" (Deaths), "Moj grob" (My Grave), and "Vzdih" (Breath).