Mostec (, ''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 4: ''Štajersko''. 1904. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, p. 8.) is a

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

in the

Municipality of Brežice The Municipality of Brežice (; ) is a municipality in eastern Slovenia in the Lower Sava Valley along the border with Croatia. The seat of the municipality is the town of Brežice. The area was traditionally divided between Lower Styria (territo ...

in eastern

Slovenia Slovenia, officially the Republic of Slovenia, is a country in Central Europe. It borders Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the south and southeast, and a short (46.6 km) coastline within the Adriati ...

. The area is part of the traditional region of

Styria Styria ( ; ; ; ) is an Austrian Federal states of Austria, state in the southeast of the country. With an area of approximately , Styria is Austria's second largest state, after Lower Austria. It is bordered to the south by Slovenia, and cloc ...

. It is now included in the

Lower Sava Statistical Region The Lower Sava Statistical Region (; until December 31, 2014 ) is a Statistical regions of Slovenia, statistical region in Slovenia. It has good traffic accessibility and is located in the Sava and Krka Valleys, with hilly areas with vineyards and ...

Geography

Mostec lies the left bank of the

Sava The Sava, is a river in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, a right-bank and the longest tributary of the Danube. From its source in Slovenia it flows through Croatia and along its border with Bosnia and Herzegovina, and finally reac ...

River and is connected to

Čatež ob Savi Čatež ob Savi (; ''Leksikon občin kraljestev in dežel zastopanih v državnem zboru,'' vol. 6: ''Kranjsko''. 1906. Vienna: C. Kr. Dvorna in Državna Tiskarna, pp. 68–69.) is a village on the right bank of the Sava River at its confluence wit ...

by a bridge across the river at the far west end of the village's territory. Fields lie east of the village, extending to

Dobova Dobova () is a settlement in the Municipality of Brežice in eastern Slovenia, close to the border with Croatia. The railway line from Ljubljana to Zagreb runs through the settlement and the station is an international railway border crossing. The ...

. The Nakla fields lie to the north, the Goričke fields to the east, and the Ledinšce and Jevšine fields to the south along the Sava. Negot Creek, a tributary of the Sava, cuts through the Poljanšce fields to the east.Savnik, Roman, ed. 1976. ''Krajevni leksikon Slovenije'', vol. 3. Ljubljana: Državna založba Slovenije. p. 38.

History

During the Second World War, the German authorities deported the population of the village and resettled it with

Gottschee Germans Gottscheers (, , ) are the German settlers of the Kočevje region (a.k.a. Gottschee) of Slovenia, formerly Gottschee County. Until the Second World War, their main language of communication was Gottscheerish, a Bavarian dialect of German. Hi ...

Mass graves

Mostec is the site of two

mass graves A mass grave is a grave containing multiple human corpses, which may or may Unidentified decedent, not be identified prior to burial. The United Nations has defined a criminal mass grave as a burial site containing three or more victims of exec ...

from the Second World War. The graves contain the remains of Croatian prisoners of war,

Home Guard Home guard is a title given to various military organizations at various times, with the implication of an emergency or reserve force raised for local defense. The term "home guard" was first officially used in the American Civil War, starting ...

soldiers transported from the

Teharje camp The Teharje camp () was a concentration camp near Teharje, Slovenia, organised by the OZNA, Yugoslav secret police (OZNA) after the end of World War II in Yugoslavia. It was primarily used for the internment of Slovene Home Guard prisoners of war, ...

, and Slovene and Croatian civilians. The Antitank Trench Mass Grave () dates from May and June 1945 and is located southeast of Mostec. The Mostec II Sava River Mass Grave () lies southwest of the settlement. The victims at the site were transported by bus from the

and the prison in Šentvid, and killings were carried out from May to October 1945 by

KNOJ The People's Defence Corps of Yugoslavia or KNOJ (, , ), was a corps of the Yugoslav Partisans in charge of internal security of liberated territories during World War II in Yugoslavia and later the territory of Socialist Federal Republic of Yug ...

units of the

Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian language, Macedonian, and Slovene language, Slovene: , officially the National Liberation Army and Partisan Detachments of Yugoslavia sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska i partizanski odr ...

. At least one busload of women was also transported to the site and killed because the Huda Jama Mass Grave was already full. Excavation of the mass graves was carried out in September 2020.

Church

The local church in the settlement is dedicated to Saints Fabian and

Sebastian Sebastian may refer to: People and fictional characters * Sebastian (name), including a list of persons and fictional characters with the name * Saint Sebastian, a Christian saint martyred in the 3rd century * Sebastian of Portugal (1554–1578 ...

and belongs to the

Parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christianity, Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest#Christianity, priest, often termed a parish pries ...

. It is a late Baroque church built in 1767 in thanksgiving for the end of the plague.

Notable people

Notable people that were born or lived in Mostec include: *

Jože Toporišič Jože Toporišič (; October 11, 1926 – December 9, 2014) was a Slovene linguist. He was the author of the most influential Slovene scientific grammar of the second half of the 20th century, a member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ...

(1926–2014), linguistToporišič, Jože
/ref>

References

External links

*
Mostec on Geopedia

Mostec.info
Accessed 19 February 2012. Populated places in the Municipality of Brežice {{Brežice-geo-stub