I'll Be Back

His life

Stjepan Filipović was born in Opuzen in 1916. In 1937 he joined the workers' movement and was arrested for the first time and sentenced to a year in prison, and in 1940 he joined the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

When the war in Yugoslavia began in 1941, he was a member of the People's Liberation Partisan detachments. In December 1941 he was captured by the Chetniks. In the Chetnik prison he was tortured and held with other captured Partisans, and he was then transferred to a camp under German control. After that he was handed over to the German Gestapo and moved to Belgrade and then to Valjevo, where a German military court sentenced him to death by hanging.

The hanging

He was hanged in Valjevo on 22 May 1942, 15 minutes earlier than planned. On the way to his execution and at the gallows, in front of the crowd that had been brought to watch the public hanging, he shouted out: "You stand and watch. If you only stand and watch, the enemy will hang you too, like this, one by one. Do not fear death. It is nothing. You will see that in a few moments, when I die. Death is not terrible if you know what you are dying for."

With these words Stjepan Filipović of Opuzen, proclaimed a People's Hero in 1949, entered the history of the worldwide resistance to fascism. His body was left at the place of the hanging for several more days and then taken away to an unknown place, and no one knows where he is buried.

A world-famous photograph

The famous photograph was taken on 22 May 1942, moments before Stjepan Filipović was hanged.

The photograph of Stjepan Filipović beneath the gallows, fists raised and a noose around his neck, went round the world and became part of the permanent exhibition of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington. It was also once displayed at the UN headquarters, which is especially proud of it, as it is one of the most striking reminders of the fight against fascism, alongside all the other artefacts that capture key moments in human history.

All over the world, Stjepan Filipović is a symbol of, and a byword for, freedom, courage, self-sacrifice, solidarity and steadfastness in the struggle for the victory of good over evil.

The monument

In 1978 a monument to him was put up in his native Opuzen. For years the people of the Neretva proudly looked at his statue, fists raised, as they drove along the main road past Opuzen, until the hero became collateral damage of the next war. On the night of 17 to 18 July 1991 his monument in Opuzen was blown up and destroyed. Those responsible for this act of vandalism have never been found, and the monument has still not been restored.

A community that does not respect or strive for the ideals of justice, equality and solidarity is a society to be ashamed of. It is impossible to erase Stjepan Filipović from memory, because symbols as strong and as great as Stjepan Filipović live for ever. For Stjepan Filipović is the pride of the world, of Opuzen and of the Neretva valley.

The restoration of the Stjepan Filipović memorial complex was listed among seven national priority projects, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia provided the money, but…

And with that we end this look at our forgotten hero, with the message on the label: I'LL BE BACK.