Another perspective is provided in documents related to the German Catholic priest, Rudolf Besel, whom the Austrian Church sent to Upper Carniola after the Germans expelled nearly all the Slovene priests and other intellectuals from Upper Carniola, since they planned to annex the region to Germany and Germanize local Slovenes. Besel was called to Dražgoše 10 days before the battle, to officiate over a funeral, where local Partisans were in attendance, and he noted "they greeted me honorably." He sought to stay entirely neutral in the war, so the Partisans gave him a pass to travel around to attend to believers in the many priest-emptied parishes throughout Upper Carniola. He was the priest who secretly buried the 41 Dražgoše villagers executed by the Germans, and later saved the gold-leaf altars from the ornate Dražgoše church before the Germans blew it up (although later the Germans stole some of its most valuable statuettes). Afterwards, sources say the Germans tried to blame the Partisans for the executions of villagers, and tried to present as a "rescue" the German jailing of Dražgoše women and children. Besel stayed on as a beloved priest after the war in Slovenia, but due mainly to enmity and distrust from the local Church and priests, he finally left Slovenia in 1947, expressing homesickness for Slovenia thereafter.