Stjepan Filipović

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stjepan "Stevo" Filipović (27 January 1916 – 22 May 1942) was a Yugoslav partisan and was proclaimed national hero after he was executed during World War II.

He was born in Opuzen in Croatia, but also lived in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kragujevac, Serbia before the World War. In 1937 he joined workers' movement, and was first arrested in 1939 and sentenced to a year in prison. In 1940 he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

Filipović was with Partisans in Valjevo in 1941 when the war started in Yugoslavia. On 24 February 1942, German forces captured him.

He was hanged in Valjevo in 1942. Just prior to the execution, in front of the crowd who were brought to watch the hanging, he kept yelling support for the Yugoslav Communist Party, Red Army and anti-fascist paroles. He was hung 15 minutes before scheduled time.

He was proclaimed a national hero in 1949. The city of Valjevo has a monument of him, under Serbianized name Stevan Filipović.