The opening of the Park of Military History Pivkaʼs temporary exhibition “Military Field Hospital Feldspital 808 and its Chapel in Kosovelje on the Karst” with the presentation of a model of the chapel will be held on Tuesday, 4 June 2024, at 11 a.m. in the Kobarid Museum.
At the rear of the Isonzo Front, in the village of Kosovelje on the Karst, the military hospital Feldspital 808 began operating in 1917. The hospital complex consisted of 9 hospital buildings – four barracks for the wounded and sick, a barrack for convalescence, an officerʼs barrack, an ophthalmological clinic, a barrack for patients with hemorrhoids and a kitchen shack. After the breakthrough of the front in October 1917, the hospital moved to the town of Motta di Livenza, 40 kilometres northeast of Venice, where it remained until the end of the war.
The core of the exhibition is a model of the chapel. The chapel was built at the same time as the barracks in the middle of the complex in Kosovelje for the needs of spiritual care for the wounded and sick as well as hospital staff. The model of the chapel was commissioned by the Park of Military History Pivka by Franci Pogačar from Polje, Ljubljana. Making the model was a big challenge, because the chapel was demolished after World War II, and for a long time not even a photograph of it was known. The preparation of the model plan was made possible only by the precious find of the photo album of Feldspital 808, which was discovered by chance in Germany by the well-known photo collector Marko Mohorčič.
