Albina Mali was born 12 September 1925 in the Slovenian village of
Vinica in
Črnomelj Municipality, to a working-class family with eight children. Her father was a
shoemaker and her mother was a general worker. Mali began her studies in Črnomelj but in her third year, her father became ill and the family moved to
Jurka Vas, where he would die in 1934. Due to this, Mali would leave school to join the work force to support the family, originally in Vrh pri Šmihel and two years later in
Brezova Reber pri Dvoru. While living with family in Brezova Reber pri Dvoru that Mali attended the school of Dolnji Ajdovec, where she graduated in 1941. Following the beginning of
World War II in Yugoslavia, Mali joined the
National Liberation Movement and was trained under Herman Heningman, a partisan from
Dolenjske Toplice. She maintained communication between
Novo Mesto and Brezova Reber, where the activists and the partisan encampment were located. In December 1941, she left Brezova Reber and, on Heningman's orders, got a job in Novo Mesto. Operating out of the hotel where she worked, Mali disseminated leaflets and flyers and kept contact with incoming couriers. Three months later, Mali moved in with her mother in
Češča Vas. During this time, she coordinated contact between Novo Mesto, Češča Vas, Brezova Reber and
Prečna. In June 1942, a company of guards from the West
Lower Carniola detachment was liberated and transferred from Vrezovo Rebro to
Jošt. As the Italian counterassault on liberated partisan territory continued, the detachment was split into several smaller groups, reforming into a single unit in
Podstenice following the end of the offensive. It was in Podstenice, in August 1942 that Mali was admitted into the
Young Communist League of Yugoslavia. In December 1942, Mali became a
soldier in the movement, serving in the 3rd Company of the 3rd battalion of the 1st national liberation Slovenian proletarian strike brigade “Tone Tomšič”. Mali worked as a
nurse, first in a
brigade, then later in a
company, and a
battalion, where she became battalion secretary for the Young Communist League. Mali was unhappy in her role as a nurse, crying from the frustration caused by the job. Mali fought in military campaigns across Slovenia through 1942 and 1943. She was wounded three times during this campaign; on the battlefield in September 1942 near Suvoj, on 21 January 1943 in a battle against a
White Guard redoubt near
Zagorica pri Čatežu, and on 15 September 1943 near
Veliki Osolnik during the
battle for Turjak, when a mine exploded next to her causing her severe injuries including a lost of her left eye & her iconic facial disfigurement Following this injury, Mali was moved to Jelendol Partisan hospital in
Kočevski Rog, and later to Črmošnjice and then
Žumberak in Croatia. In 1944 she became a member of the
League of Communists of Yugoslavia. Mali left Žumberak at the end of 1944 and returned to
White Carniola, where she participated in battles with the local Partisan detachment. She attended the communist party school from May to July of 1944 in Kočevski Rog. Following the end of her studies, Mali worked as a nurse transporting wounded Italians in
Bari,
Gravina,
Barletta until November 1944 when she worked in
Split. Mali fought with the
8th Dalmatian Corps as a nurse until 14 January 1945 when she was transferred to an
orphanage in
Novigrad. At the end of the war, Mali moved first to
Zadar, and later to
Trieste,
Novo Mesto,
Pag,
Poreč,
Kobarid, and
Ilirska Bistrica, before finally settling in
Maribor in December 1955. In
Ljubljana, she became a member of the
Krsko and Maribor committees of the
League of Communists of Slovenia. ==Death==