Stjepan Filipović (Cyrillic script: Стјепан "Стево" Филиповић) (27 January 1916 – 22 May 1942) was a Croatian Partisan who was executed during
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including all great powers, organized into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and posthumously declared a
People's Hero of YugoslaviaThe Order of the People's Hero was a Yugoslav gallantry medal, the second highest military award in the SFR Yugoslavia, It was awarded to individuals, military units, political and other organisations who distinguished themselves by extraordinary heroic deeds during war and in peacetime...
.
Filipović was born on 27 January 1916 in
OpuzenOpuzen is a small town in Dubrovnik-Neretva County in Croatia. It has a population of 3,242 , and together with neighbouring municipality of Slivno, which lies alongside the left bank of river Mala Neretva, has 5,320 residents. This settlement is known as a major center of tangerine production in...
(in modern-day
Dubrovnik-Neretva CountyDubrovnik-Neretva county is the southernmost Croatian and Dalmatian county. Its center is Dubrovnik; the other larger towns are Metković and Ploče in the Neretva river delta...
,
CroatiaCroatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a country in southeast Europe, at the crossroads of the Pannonian Plain, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is Zagreb...
), in the last days of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Before the outbreak of the Second World War he lived in
MostarMostar is a city and municipality in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the biggest and the most important city in the Herzegovina region and the center of the Herzegovina-Neretva Canton of the Federation. Mostar is situated on the Neretva river and is the fifth-largest city in the country...
and
KragujevacKragujevac is the fourth largest city in Serbia after Belgrade, Novi Sad and Niš, the main city of the Šumadija region and the administrative centre of Šumadija District. It is situated on the banks of the Lepenica River...
, then both part of the
Kingdom of YugoslaviaThe Kingdom of Yugoslavia was a kingdom stretching from the Western Balkans to Central Europe which existed during the often-tumultuous interwar era of 1918–1941...
. He joined the workers' movement in 1937, and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1940. Filipović was arrested in 1939 and sentenced to a year in prison.
Filipović was commander of the Partisans' Tomnasko-Kolubarski unit in
ValjevoValjevo is a city located in Serbia at 44.28° North, 19.89° East. The municipality of Valjevo is situated in Western Serbia and is the center of the Kolubara District, which includes five other smaller municipalities, with a total population of almost 200,000 people...
by 1941. He was captured on 24 February 1942 by
Axis forcesThe Axis powers comprised the countries that were opposed to the Allies during World War II. The three major Axis powers—Germany, Italy, and Japan—were part of a military alliance on the signing of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, which officially founded the Axis powers...
and subsequently hanged in Valjevo, occupied
YugoslaviaYugoslavia is a term that describes three political entities that existed successively on the Balkan Peninsula in Europe, during most of the 20th century.The first country to be known by this...
, on 22 May 1942. As the rope was put around his neck, Filipović defiantly thrust his hands out and denounced the Germans and their Axis allies as murderers, shouting "Death to fascism, freedom to the people!". He urged the Yugoslav people to resist and implored them to never cease resisting. At this moment, a subsequently-famous photograph was taken from which a statue was cast.
Filipović was declared a National Hero of Yugoslavia on 14 December 1949. The town of Valjevo has a statue dedicated to him, "
Stevan Filipović". A monument was also erected in his home town of Opuzen in 1968, but was torn down in 1991.