Franc Kavčič, a longtime resident of Dražgoše who lived through the battle, has more recently presented a diverging first-hand personal account of the battle and subsequent events. According to his telling, the Partisans were invited to the village by supporters, and refused to leave following a subsequent request by some villagers. The Partisans then retreated after an initial scuffle. Afterwards the Germans herded his father and 18 male villagers into the priest's residence, where they burned them alive. The Germans also sought to burn alive the 10-year-old Kavčič and his mother, along with 60 women and children, but a local official convinced them not to. Instead, the Germans expelled and imprisoned the women and children and surviving men, while burning and then blowing up with explosives the village, later returning to also blow up the church. In August 1945, a government minister of the newly established communist Yugoslav state visited Dražgoše to present a plan to rebuild the village to a handful of residents present at the time. The minister proposed that two large apartment buildings and two communal barns be built by the state, with the rest of the land converted into common pastureland. The villagers expected the government provide funds for the reconstruction of individual houses. The meeting ended when an enraged villager spit in the government representative's face. The villagers rebuilt Dražgoše without state support from 1949 to 1960, financed by revenues from a cooperative sawmill enterprise they established following the war. The state didn't see through a promise to construct a road to the village. Kavčič notes that views regarding the commemoration differ among residents, with villagers divided into two "camps" on the issue.