Stjepan Filipović

He was born on January 27, 1916 in Opuzen as Stjepan Filipović.

In 1932, the Filipović family moved to Kragujevac, where Stjepan learned the locksmith trade and approached the labor movement, which was very strong in that city.

Since his arrival in Kragujevac, he has been registered as Stevan in official documents. In Kragujevac, in 1939, he was arrested for the first time and sentenced to 20 days in prison for distributing leaflets of a trade union. The following year, he became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and took part in the strike of the Military Technical Institute in Kragujevac, for which he ended up in prison again, this time for three months.

Year 1941

After the April events in Belgrade, partisan detachments began to form. The Valjevo partisan detachment, along with other greats of the revolution, was created by Stevan Filipović. In the first armed battles, Stevan showed great courage. At the beginning of July, with several other fighters, he destroyed a German truck and its crew near Valjevo. Because of his courage, he quickly progressed from a fighter to the deputy commander of the Kolubara company. He was especially prominent in the attack on the Lajkovac railway station on August 15, 1941. He became the commander of the company and his company acquired the name of one of the best units of the Valjevo detachment. He enters the liberated Krupanj in the role of the winner, and when Sabac was attacked, he found himself there, holding his part of the battlefield. He was soon promoted to battalion commander. The radius of action of his unit extends to the Valjevo and Podrinje districts.

December 1941

Locksmith Stevan Filipović falls into the hands of the enemy. Well-known Gestapo interrogation experts went to work. On January 27, Gestapo lieutenant Vinka took the case into his own hands. A new file F 102 is opened in room 214. A message arrives from Belgrade to the Feldjandarmerie in Valjevo to escort the political prisoner in custody for further questioning to the Executive Group of the Security Police and Security Service in Belgrade at 5 Kralja Aleksandra Street. On Vinke's orders, investigator Steve takes matters into his own hands. The investigation lasted until March 11, 1942. Stevan answered questions, beatings and various tortures with silence. He was released from custody with a green completed form that read:

"Surrender to the Wehrmacht for execution in Valjevo"

MAY 22, 1942

The execution is scheduled for Friday, May 22, at 11 a.m. Stevan Filipović was hanged ten minutes before the scheduled time.

While they were leading him through the central streets of Valjevo, Filipović shouted: “Long live the people's liberators! Down with the fascists and traitors of the Serbian people! Long live Stalin! Long live communism! ” Fearing that the situation would get out of control, Nedić's gendarmes decided to take him to the gallows by a shorter route, through the market, instead of the planned route.

That is how the gendarmerie brought Filipović to the execution site earlier. With the noose around his neck, arms raised, he held the last word, to which he was entitled: “What are you waiting for? What are you suffering from? Take the rifles and drive this scoundrel out of the ground. Long live the liberation struggle and our allies and friends! ", Thundered Filipović.

As a result of these shouts, unrest arose among the Wehrmacht supporters present, as well as among Serbian spectators, so that shouts were heard in German: "Hang him!".

A German soldier tried to hit him with a butt to silence him. Filipovic tried to kick him and lost his balance. The stairs of the planks on which he stood fell, the noose tightened.

The practice of giving the convict the right to the last word was abolished after his execution.

The Gestapo file F102 reads in red chemical:

"Chief IV, impossible case"

"Subject: Execution of the leader of a communist gang, a Serb, Stevan Filipović, born on January 27, 1916 in Opuzen.

On the orders of the 714th Infantry Division, today at 10:50 a.m., the Serbian State Guard publicly hanged the leader of the communist gang - Filipović - at the market in Valjevo.

To this day, Filipović has been in the prison of the local command of the place and, according to the order, he was kept at the disposal of the division for execution. His execution was scheduled for 11 a.m. and he, like the occasion of the last final execution, was given to the Serbian State Guard at 10:35 a.m. in the yard of the prison, to ten gendarmes. The gendarmes did not adhere to the usual route around the market, so they arrived at the execution site with Filipović 15 minutes before the execution.

Arriving at the execution site, Filipović gave a communist speech, calling on the arriving mass to accept rifles. After the verdict was read, he was given, according to Serbian law, the so-called "last word". Filipović used this opportunity to continue to incite in the communist sense and shouted: "Down with Hitler, down with fascism, long live the Soviet Union".

In similar cases, such incitement could lead to an incident among the severely hated Serb population. On the other hand, it is inadmissible for one convict to insult the Führer and the German Reich in the last minute before the execution.

"Only Christian apostles were so brave," the woman said in the audience, admiring the act of courage of the "crucified" Stjepan Filipovic, who goes down in legend as a kind of Ne Guevan Che Guevara, but also Croatian as well as Serbian and European. Because Stjepan Filipović was the most famous Croat who fought in Serbia, in Serbian partisan detachments. This is how Stjepan Filipović ended his earthly life, becoming a symbol of the fight against fascism in Europe and the world, and the symbols are those who live forever.

Stjepan Filipović's brother Šimun was shot dead in Kragujevac on October 20, 1941. year as part of the revenge and the unprecedented order of General Franz Bome - One hundred Serbs for one German, when a total of nearly 2800 Serb civilians were killed in two days. As a Croat, Simon could avoid being shot, step forward and leave. But Simon was not one of them, he did not step forward, he remained to share his destiny with his friends, brothers and sisters.

The third brother from this unforgettable heroic Filipović family, Nikola, was a fighter of the Kragujevac partisan detachment. Like thousands of Dalmatians, Nikola died on Zelengora - Sutjeska in May 1943, as a fighter of the First Proletarian.

Everything that these exemplary people of the Filipović tribe from Opuzen on the Neretva did was honorable and honest. All these three sons Ante and Ivanka Filipović did was sacrifice for others, sacrifice for the common good and the community. Their actions are exemplary, noble and humane, and these values ​​are woven into every human being as the good that makes you human.