Modern History: Yugoslav Partisans

VALTER brani sarajevo

The movie "Valter brani Sarajevo!" (Walter defends Sarajevo!) is to Bosnia and Herzegovina what Star Wars is space geeks. It tells the story of Vladimir Peric, the leader of Sarajevo's resistence movement during the Second World War.

And while what really happened is not nearly as exciting or glorious, it is enough to justify Vladimir Peric's near-superhuman fame throughout the former Yugoslavia, nowhere moreso than Sarajevo.

Vladimir Peric was born in 1919 in Prijepolje, in the Sandzak region of Serbia and Montenegro. The son of a Serbian father and a Bosniak mother, Vladimir felt a deep pride and cultural connection with both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia and Montenegro. Thus, when he finished his studies, he left Prijepolje and moved to Sarajevo.

Prijepolje:

Vladimir Peric worked as an accountant at a bank in Sarajevo and by all accounts immersed himself in the local culture and way-of-life. He would have been a model Bosnian citizen, but fate had other plans.

Peric had been living in Sarajevo for less than a year when the fascist forces of Croatia's Ustasa regime occupied the city. Vladimir Peric expressed shock, dismay, and outrage that the city of Sarajevo fell without a single bullet. He could not understand why residents of Sarajevo were willing to tolerate the disintegration of the first Yugoslavia.

And so he set about forming a resistence.

Vladimir Peric surrounded himself with young people from the city equally disturbed by the turn of events and began an almost comedic routine of sabotage missions designed to give the people of Sarajevo a good laugh and some cheer, while causing an only mild annoyance to the occupying forces.

Soon, though, the dark truth of what the occupying forces had planned for many for Sarajevo's citizens - among them Serbs and Jews - came to light.

Vladimir Peric fled Sarajevo - but not as a coward, as a fighter. He assumed command of the Zenica Partisan Brigade in central Bosnia and Herzegovina where he led several successful raids against Croatian forces.

With time he received word that many of his Serbian family members had been killed by the Croatian and Bosniak fascist forces, and many of his Bosniak family members were killed by the Serbian Cetniks. With this is left the Zenica Partisans and joined the Eastern Bosnia brigade, which was actively fighting Cetniks along the Serbian border.

In 1943 he was ordered by his commander to return to Sarajevo and assume control of what was now a unified, violent resistence. Under his leadership, Sarajevo's resistence fighters decimated Croatian and German supply convoys and played a large part in weakening the city enough that Partisan forces were able to get near to it.

The decisive battles came in March and April of 1945 when the Croatian and German forces completely fled the city under heavy Partisan bombardment and resistence violence.

Vladimir Peric woke up on April 6, 1945, and went downtown - running through the narrow streets of Sarajevo and shouting to everyone he had received word that the last remnants of the German and Croatian forces had been ordered to retreat.

As they left, they bombarded the city. As the Partisans entered, they bombarded the city. No one knows whether the mortar that killed Vladimir Peric on April 6, 1945 - Sarajevo's liberation day - came from the fascists or the Partisans.

All we know for certain are Vladimir Peric's last words.

"Look, my friends! WELCOME TO YUGOSLAVIA!"