Kočevski Rog

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Kočevski Rog or simply Rog is a karstic plateau which is a part of Kočevje Highlands above Črmošnjice Valley. The plateau belongs to Lower Carniola region of Slovenia and to Dinara Mountains. The central part with 1099 meter high peak Veliki Rog is the highest. The plateau is covered with forest.

Counts of Ortenburg started to colonize this area with German peasants called Kočevarji around 1350. They moved away at the beginning of World War II in 1941 and settled in homes of evicted Slovenes around Krško and Brežice. Since that time Rog is mainly uninhabited.

In 1942 Kočevski Rog was home to headquarters of Central Committee of Slovene Communist Party (CK KPS) and headquarters of High Command of Slovene Partisan Troops. The place with barracks was called Baza 20 (Base 20). It is preserved and today it is kept as a tourist attraction. During the war printing offices and hospitals were also built in the forest. The only ski slope of Dolenjska, Rog-Črmošnjice (or Gače) also lies in the vicinity of Rog.

Kočevski Rog is one of places in Slovenia where post-war executions took place. Special military units of Yugoslav army killed tens of thousands of Serb Royalists, Slovenes and other innocents, who had escaped to Austria after their defeat and were repatriated by the English afterwards. Their corpses were thrown into abysses. Read Nikolai Tolstoy's historic account in "The Minister and the Massacres."