Boris Krajnc in drugi kemiki na dachauskih procesih

Abstract

At the University of Ljubljana, Boris Krajnc was the first habilitated teacher to cover the subject of biochemistry: he was appointed on January 5, 1946. However, Krajnc’s life ended abruptly. He was arrested on October 17, 1947 and sentenced to death on April 26, 1948 in the mounted Dachau Trial in Ljubljana. He was reportedly shot on May 12, 1948, at the age of 34. The life story of Boris Krajnc is closely linked to the work of several Slovenian chemists who were selected as prisoners at Dachau Concentration Camp to provide technical assistance in human experiments or in the clinical laboratory of the camp hospital. In the post-war period Dachau Trials in Ljubljana, a total of 8 chemists were convicted, 5 of whom were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad. In later evaluations of Dachau Trials it turned out that the charges were constructed and the confessions were obtained by cruel interrogation methods, therefore all judgements were annulled. After the emigration of the enzymologist Richard Klemen (1942) and the expulsion of Maks Samec and Marta Blinc from the university (1945), Boris Krajnc was to supervise biochemistry at the Technical Faculty. After his death, the lecturer of biochemistry was Dušan Stucin from the Medical Faculty. Later, biochemistry was absent from the chemistry curriculum for several years.