Anton Okrogar

My hero is Tone Okrogar, because he has done a lot of great things for our country. He was a Slovenian worker, communist, officer, partisan and national hero.

Okrogar Tone was born in a mining family in Zagorje near Sava on the third of February 1923. He finished elementary school in his hometown, then he became metalworker. He became involved in communist movement before the outbreak of the second World War II because of capitulation of Yugoslavia.When he turned 18 years old, he became a member of a SKOJ-Young Communist League of Yugoslavia. Young Okrogar was included in the liberation movement in the summer of 1941, when he as a young SKOJ-member helped collecting weapons and other material which was necessary for Revirska squad, established on the 1st of August.

At the same time he also participated in some actions. Most important actions were  mining electrical equipment in the mine attack on the Zagorje and attack on Zagorje's Spa. He was involved in a partisan movement more than a year and he was fighting on the region's hills. He has become extremely popular among comrades because of his self-sacrifice. In 1942 he became a member of the Communist Part of Slovenia, and in November that year he was send to the group of partisans in the Slovenian part of Carinthia. His task was to strengthen the national liberation movement and partisan movement on the north side of the Karavanks and attract as many Carinthian Slovenes into the movement.

After he arrived in Carinthia, Okrogar started with his legendary work, which was virtually unknown among Carinthian Slovenes, on both sides of the border. A list of his exploits was long. Most notable among the first military action was the third attack on Mežica in April 1943, when soldiers captured the local German commander. In one of the action in southern Carinthia, Okrogar alone in a cafe where he entered killed a group of German soldiers and their commander. Okrogar was really brave.

 After the war, until the year 1952 he served to the Yugoslav army. In 1952 was he sent in the reserve army due to illness. At the same time, he returned to the home Zasavje, where he lived and worked until his early death. He died on 13th February in 1955.
 

About ten thousand people were gathered at his funeral in his hometown Zagorje. Funeral was also attended by a delegation from the Carinthian partisans that symbolically put some Carinthian land on his grave.
He was very brave and important, and this is  reason why is our school is named after him.