In a 1950 letter from the District Committee I of the Commissariat for Internal Affairs in Maribor, the official of the Yugoslav secret police confused Leopoldina with her daughter Poldika and used incorrect combinations of names and surnames for both. He also listed claims that appear in none of the personal or archival documents and contradict scholarly studies on the functioning of the occupier’s institutions during the war. However, Captain Milan V. did candidly acknowledge that Leopoldina “After the liberation she was taken away by our authorities and never returned. Where she might be now is unknown, nor could it be determined on the ground.”
This statement is the only official confirmation that Leopoldina’s life ended within the framework of the state apparatus of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Neither the police of the previous state nor the internal authorities of the Republic of Slovenia as its successor ever investigated the disappearance of arrested citizens. Thousands of such cases were never examined and were simply concluded by declaring the missing person dead—without explanation or apology to the families.
