Družina Kukovec (1908-1981)

Klara Kukovec (July 12, 1883-1980), physician. She was born in Kherson, Ukraine. She studied medicine in Geneva, Bern, Zurich and Lausanne. After graduating in 1908, she married Janko Kukovec, an engineer from Ljutomer. She settled in Trieste in 1910. She was the only female doctor among 225 doctors. At the end of the First World War, she accepted General Maister's invitation and took up a post in the infectious diseases department of the military hospital in Maribor. After the war, she worked in a private medical practice in Maribor. Her husband Janko Kukovec was born in Ljutomer in 1883, he was the son of the well-known politician and landowner Ivan Kukovec. He studied civil engineering in Zurich. In 1920, he was employed in the Maribor District Administration and later worked as a construction councilor in the Maribor Left Bank District Administration. From 1924 to 1941 he was president of the People's University in Maribor. He was a lecturer, an intellectual and a skilful organizer. Robert Kukovec, the son of Janko and Klara, established himself as a doctor and surgeon and organizer of partisan health care. He joined the Liberation Front at the beginning of the occupation. In 1943 he joined the National Liberation Army. From the fall of 1944, he was chief surgeon of the 4th Operational Zone in Styria. He was killed by the occupying forces on April 13, 1945 in Ljubno pri Savinji. His second son Vlado worked as a lawyer in Maribor.

The Kukovec family fonds were acquired by the Regional Archives Maribor in 2003.