Pečovnik Ratko

Ratko Pečovnik (Zgornja Polskava,14 September 1917 – 1 January 1995).

 

After graduating from the Secondary School in Maribor he enrolled at the Naval Academy in Dubrovnik and after graduating in 1939 took a course in hydroplane reconnaissance at Divulje. After the capitulation of the Yugoslav Army he returned to Polskava, then retreated before the German Army to Ljubljana. In March 1942 he was arrested and jailed there and subsequently sent to the Gonars concentration camp and eventually to Padua. Upon the capitulation of the Italian Army he joined the partisan units in the region of Dolenjska. As a pre-war mariner he was initially all sent to the island of Vis, then to Hvar to serve in the Naval Group within IX Corps. Later on he took charge of the Intelligence Centre in Trieste and led it also from other locations (Škofi near Komen) until the national liberation. On 2 May 1945 he organized in Trieste the POS (Slovenian Partisan Detachment), which was only a day later taken over by Kazimir Renčelj. Until his retirement he worked for the Merchant Navy.

 

Nadja Terčon

 

(PMSMP, documentation NOB)