Unsung Heroine of Yugoslavia: The Tragic Tale of a Brave Herzegovinian Woman Who Defied the Ustasha and Chetniks, Only to Meet a Brutal End

The main character of our story today is Dear Pravicarevolutionary, participant of the National Liberation Struggle and national hero of Yugoslavia.

As a high school student in Dubrovnik, he became a member of the illegal Communist Youth League, and from 1938 a member of the KPJ Trebinje district committee. She was politically active among the students and youth of Trebinje. During her studies at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, she belonged to the revolutionary student movement and actively worked in student associations. He became a member of the illegal Communist Party in 1940.

After the occupation of Yugoslavia, in 1941 she returned to her homeland and was one of the organizers of the uprising in southern Herzegovina. During 1941 and the first half of 1942, he held various responsible party positions – secretary of the District Committee of KPJ Trebinje, secretary of District and District Committee of SKOJ, member of District Committee of SKOJ Herzegovina and District Committee of KPJ for Eastern Herzegovina. .

During the Third Enemy Attack, in June 1942, he was captured by the Chetniks and handed over to the Italians. During the investigation in the prison in Dubrovnik, she was severely tortured, but as she did not reveal anything, she was returned to the Chetniks, who continued to torture her in Ljubomir prison, near Trebinje. She was shot together with her brother Radet and Steve Bratić on June 27, 1942. She was named a national hero as one of the first fighters of NOV and PO from Yugoslavia on June 8, 1945.

She was born on October 28, 1919 in the village of Bijelac, near Trebinje.

Her parents, father Risto and mother Milica, had eight children – a son Radoslav called Rade and seven daughters, the youngest of whom was Dragica, called Draga. In the period between the two world wars, 11 families lived in Bijelač and all of them were surnamed Pravica. Rista Pravice’s family was considered respectable and wealthy.

He attended the elementary school from 1927. until 1931 in the Duži monastery, near Trebinje, as the surrounding villages did not have a school. After finishing elementary school, Dragica went to Dubrovnik, where she enrolled in high school. After being accepted into the communist youth, Dragica dedicated herself to party work. He worked among high school students and among seasonal workers in the city’s port, who mainly came from Trebinje and the surrounding area.

In the fall of 1939, Dragica came to study in Belgrade. Shortly after her arrival, she joined the work of the Bosnian Student Association “Petar Kočić”, where the youth section “Neretva” was formed in those years, which gathered students from Herzegovina. She was also active in the cultural and artistic group of this society, ie in its choir led by Mahmut Bušatlija. In the winter of the same year, on December 14, 1939, mass demonstrations took place in Belgrade, and the students of the University of Belgrade also participated. When the authorities sent police and gendarmerie to the demonstrators, clashes broke out in which 10 people were shot dead. Dragica took part in the demonstrations and was appalled by the fact that gendarmes were shooting unarmed demonstrators. During the break in the demonstration, a police agent tried to arrest him, but he managed to escape.

MONUMENT AT BEGRADD

In the early forties, Dragica was accepted as a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). He worked in the party cell in the Faculty of Philosophy, whose members included, among others, Ljiljana Čalovska, Zija Dizdarević, Dušan Kostić, Veselin Mićunović, Mileva Lula Planojević and others. During her studies, she kept in constant contact with the party organization in Trebinje.

During the April War, she was in a group of about thirty young people who tried to volunteer for the Yugoslav army, but were rejected at the garrison in Trebinje. After the captivity, her brother Rade came to his birthplace Bjelač. They were there until May 28, 1941.

THE USTASH COUNTY

Before the Ustasha attack on the village, where thirteen Serbs were captured and killed, Tahir Hadžović, who was good friends with Rado and Dragica, warned them in time and they left the village. As known communists, they were targeted by “Franko” Croatian nationalists, who joined the Ustasha after the creation of the Independent State of Croatia. After that, they moved to their sister’s house in Dubrovnik, which was in the Italian occupation zone.

At the end of August 1941, the rebel units began the first major actions against the Ustasha – near the village of Mosko, on the road Trebinje – Bileća, the battalion of the 14th Home Guard Regiment was defeated, and on the same day the gendarmerie captured a station on Jasen and captured a large number of weapons.

At the beginning of September, the Ustashas publicly admitted their impotence in the fight against the rebels, so they transferred the entire military and civil government in this area to the Italian military command.

At the beginning of October 1941, in the village of Pađeni, near Bileća, the Regional Conference of the SKOJ was held, where the Regional Committee of the SKOJ for Eastern Herzegovina was formed, and Dragica was elected to its leadership.

After that, in the same month, the SKOJ Regional Committee for Trebinje was formed and Dragica was elected its secretary.

MONUMENT TO FALLEN FIGHTERS AGAINST FASCISM IN TREBINJ

In late 1941 and early 1942, he took part in a number of armed conflicts with the enemy. After the enemy’s attack on the free territory in Herzegovina, at the end of May and beginning of June 1942, the partisan units retreated to western Bosnia, and Dragica continued on partisan duty in the Trebinje area. She was soon arrested by the Chetniks and tortured in Zupci prison, and then handed over to the Italians. She was tortured in the Dubrovnik prison “Kazbek”, and since the Italians could not force a confession from her, they returned Dragica to the Chetniks. In the Chetnik prison in Ljubomir, near Trebinje, she was tortured for ten days, and on June 27, 1942, she was shot together with her brother. Radet Pravic f Steve Bratic.

On June 8, 1945, Dragica Pravica was posthumously awarded the Order of the National Hero for her heroic actions on the battlefield and her heroic behavior before the enemy by decision of the Presidency of the Anti-Fascist Council for the Liberation of the People of Yugoslavia (AVNOJ), and on the suggestion the supreme commander of the NOB and POJ, Marshal Josip Broz Tito. By the same decision, Radojka Lakić (1917 – 1941), a student at the Faculty of Philosophy, was declared a national hero with Dragica.

They were among the first People’s Liberation Army fighters to receive the highest decoration for bravery. Dragica is Yugoslavia’s fifth female national hero.

(SB)