Majda Vrhovnik

Majda Vrhovnik (nom de guerre Lojzka ) (14 April 1922 – 4 May 1945) was a Slovene communist and medical student. She was a member of the District Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia for Klagenfurt and was named a people's hero of Yugoslavia after her death.

Life Majda Vrhovnik was born 14 April 1922 in Ljubljana. Her older brother Vladimir Vrhovnik (17 August 1916 – 28 April 1945, a.k.a. Volodja or Mirko, also a member of the Communist Party) was born in Vienna, but the family moved to Ljubljana after the First World War.

After graduating from an upper secondary school she enrolled in the University of Ljubljana’s Faculty of Medicine. During her studies she was a member of the Slovene Club and the student revolutionary movement. She was accepted for membership in the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1940.

Vrhovnik joined the underground movement immediately after the occupation of Yugoslavia. She became a courier for the organizational secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Slovenia, Tone Tomšič (1910–1942). and went through the Sattnitz Mountains, first working in the Völkermarkt area She was tortured in prison and shot on 4 May 1945. Her grave remains unmarked to this day. She was proclaimed a people's hero of Yugoslavia on 5 July 1951 created by merging Primary School no. 5 on Šubic Street and Primary School no. 6 on Vrtača Street. A bust of Vrhovnik was created by the Slovene sculptor Stojan Batič in 1961 and stands in front of the school.

"Majda Vrhovnik" was used as a pseudonym by Franci Zavrl, the editor of Mladina, after his arrest. The pseudonym "Majda Vrhovnik" was also used by the Mladina journalist Vlado Miheljak at the same time.