A young partisan with a defiant look and strong political convictions, remembered for her modesty, steadfastness and courage, who, even at the cost of her life, after bloody beatings in nasty casemates, did not reveal her own name and betray her war comrades.
Nada Dimić, a revolutionary and Yugoslav anti-fascist fighter from the Second World War, lived for the communist idea, and died at the age of 19, under a false name, in March 1942 in the Ustasha camp of Stara Gradiška.
"She is my eternal inspiration and a symbol of tireless and uncompromising resistance," Zorana Unković, a feminist and anti-fascist activist from Zagreb, told the BBC in Serbian.
She was a member of the Union of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) and the banned Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ), and one of the first female fighters of the Sisak Partisan Squad. the first such guerrilla units in an occupied country.
She was awarded the Order of National Hero posthumously July 5, 1951.
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"Over time, she has outgrown her original significance and is no longer perceived only as a heroine of the communist movement and resistance to fascism, but much more widely, as an example of a brave, young woman who fought, not only for her own rights, but also for the rights of some other oppressed minorities," says Goran Hutinec, doctor of historical sciences and assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb, for the BBC in Serbian.
The exact date of her death, he adds, cannot be precisely determined because the Ustasha - the fascist movement that governed the Queens-based Independent State of Croatia (NDH) during the Second World War, from 1941 to 1945, "did not keep accurate records of the victims and falsified the dates."
On the website of the Memorial area of Jasenovac, one of the sources indicates that she was killed March 17, while in Gojko Marcheta's book "Nada Dimić - life path and revolutionary work" the date of death is stated March 23, 1942.
Growing up and education
Nada Dimić was born on September 6, 1923 in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, in the town of Divoselo near Gospić (today's Croatia).
She came from a poor Serbian (agricultural) working family.
Mother Sara passed away when Nada finished the first grade of the elementary school she attended in Kozarac near Prijedor (today's Bosnia and Herzegovina), so single father Todor, with the help of grandmother Maša, took care of the eight children.
The youngest daughter successfully continued her education in Divosel, studying with her brother and sisters "under the weak light of a small kerosene lamp", i.e. a "slumped lamp", says the author Gojko Marcheta in biography of Nada Dimić from 1979.
On the eve of the Second World War, her native village was mostly inhabited by Serbs and numbered more than 2.200 people, while according to population census in Croatia in 2011. four residents lived there.
Vjeran Pavlaković, historian and professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Rijeka, says that Nada grew up in "turbulent times" and that her native Lika during the 1930s "experienced an increase in ethnic tensions between Serbs and Croats, as well as the birth of radical ideological movements." .
"Both the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) and the Ustasha movement sought to use violent methods to overthrow the king's dictatorship," he explains to the BBC in Serbian.
On January 6, 1929, the Yugoslav king Aleksandar Karađorđević dissolved the assembly, introduced a dictatorship and banned the work of all political parties and trade unions.
Therefore, the work of these two ideologically opposed political organizations - communists and Ustasha - took place illegally.
Inter-ethnic and ideological friction spilled over to the students, and fights often broke out.
Nada Dimić enrolled in high school in neighboring Gospić in 1934 and already in the early grades showed by her own actions that she was "class conscious" - on one occasion she organized collection of voluntary contributions to buy books for the two poorest classmates.
In the second grade, she wrote a composition in the Serbian-Croatian language where, unlike other students who "described the natural beauty of Lika", she touched upon the difficult life of peasants and workers.
The director of the high school assessed the written assignment as "communist propaganda", which is why Nada was almost expelled from school.
Professor Mirko Banjanin came to her defense, who liked the composition very much, which cost him his job, the information is from Gojko Marcheta's book.
Entry into politics of a young Ličan woman
Nada Dimić finished her last year of high school in Zemun, moving in with her sister Savka in 1938.
"Mobility at that time was quite high, especially in the lower classes, either because of the search for a job, or for the sake of education," explains Professor Hutinec.
The worker's origin, the poverty in which she grew up, the mockery of rich children and the injustice she encountered during her life led her to join the Zemun SKOJ at the age of 15.
After finishing high school, she entered the Commercial Academy in Zemun, where she "learned typing and shorthand", which she would later use "in propaganda activities", when typing and printing leaflets and pamphlets.
Political activism did not abate, and in the third grade, at the age of 17, she was accepted into the KPJ.
Professor Hutinec says that "Nada Dimić is an example of a young woman who, probably withdrawn by her own experience, felt the class struggle as something important and became very active" in the movement.
"It is not a rare case that people of lower class origin, who were very aware of their place in the economic sense and how they have no perspective in such a society and order, accept such ideas and join the party that will organize it," explains the historian.
He says that the youth then "often entered politics, not in established civil parties that work legally, but in more extreme movements, either on the right or on the left".
While living in Zemun, Dimić also participated in some demonstrations, and due to her political involvement, she was arrested for the first time in October 1940 and taken to the infamous Belgrade prison - Glavnjača.
There, the young communist and her friend Radojka Katić were interrogated and tortured by Svetozar Vuković, later the warden of Banjičko camp, and Đorđe Kosmajac.
Blue from the beatings were released fifteen days after the detention after the intervention of her colleague's father, it is stated in the book "Nada Dimić - life path and revolutionary work" by Gojko Marcheta.
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Not long after that, Nada Dimić left Zemun and returned to Croatia, to her brother Bogdan, also a member of the party, in Sisak, where she continued to live, work and perform party tasks at the bar.
Partisan days of Žuta, Milka and Ankica Vinek
The Kingdom of Yugoslavia capitulated and was occupied after the April War of 1941 - an eleven-day invasion by the Axis Powers led by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.
On one part of it, the puppet and queenly Independent State of Croatia was created, which was governed by the Ustashas.
When the fascist movement came to power in Sisak, the unemployed, according to a special decision, had to leave the city, so party comrades Nadi found a job in a hair salon.
Repression grew, and there was a need for organized resistance to the Quisling authorities and the occupier.
Thus, on the day when Germany attacked the Soviet Union - June 22, 1941, the Sisak Partisan Detachment was formed in the neighboring village of Žabno, and one of the founders was the still-minor Nada Dimić.
yellow, as was her nickname at the time, at first it was mainly engaged in propaganda activities, but later it also participated in various diversionary actions, such as blowing up the railway in the city.
"She led, primarily because of her skills - typing and shorthand, theirs technique, a kind of department where the main task was the reproduction of propaganda leaflets and proclamations for the needs of the Sisak party organization," explains historian Hutinec.
A month after the formation of the squad and constant hiding in the forests, Nadi Dimić was entrusted with a serious task - to go to Sisak and re-establish the broken connection with the party leadership in the city.
However, immediately after entering the place, she was discovered and imprisoned, and then tortured.
Since they failed to extract a confession that she was a communist and other information, the leadership of the Sisak police decided to send her to the Zagreb prison.
"Then she tried to commit suicide, poisoned herself and, since they couldn't keep her alive, and it was important for the Ustaše to catch illegals, interrogate them and find out the identity of collaborators, she was transferred to a hospital in Zagreb," says Hutinec.
She says she was treated there for several months, and then her escape was organized.
"First they found out where she was, and then, with the help of sympathizers among the staff, they brought her clothes, she changed, walked outside when attention was diverted, got into the car and left," adds the Croatian historian.
She hid in several places in Zagreb, and then was transferred to Petrova Gora, the core of the uprising that erupted as a result of Ustasha crimes against the Serbian population.
Thanks to the courage and skill she showed, Nadi Dimić was sent to occupied Karlovac, where she will continue to work.
In November 1941, she was entrusted with a new difficult task - the organization of the rescue of communist comrade Marjan Čavić from the hospital on the same principle as she was rescued.
However, the action led by Večeslav Holjevac failed because the partisan was transferred to Zagreb.
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A vow of silence until death
Eighteen-year-old Nada Dimić fell into the hands of the Ustasha police on December 3, 1941.
Agents legitimized her while she was on her last war mission.
In the biography of Nada Dimić, Gojko Marcheta writes that the young partisan then opened her bag, grabbed a gun and killed an agent.
Ustasha policemen and Italian soldiers, who joined them after hearing the shooting, caught her trying to escape.
She was arrested under the false name of Ankica Vinek, and earlier she also operated under the pseudonym Milka.
The cold-blooded fighter was then taken to the Zagreb prison on Savska cesta, where she was tortured with the cruelest methods.
"They interrogated her without success, they didn't even know who she was because she had false documents and they led her under that false identity - she didn't admit her name until the end," claims Hutinec, an assistant professor at the Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb.
After three months of torture, in February 1942, she was transferred to the former prison, then an Ustasha camp, in Stara Gradiška.
"Those whom the Ustasha considered to be political opponents were taken there, it was not a camp like Jasenovac, a central where people were imprisoned because of their national and racial affiliation," adds the historian.
Exhausted from beatings and mistreatment, Nada Dimić fell ill with spotted typhus, which was ravaging the camp cells.
She was killed in March 1942, without breaking her vow of silence, thus becoming a symbol of steadfastness and courage within the partisan movement and the Yugoslav struggle against fascism.
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What is the influence of Nada Dimić on young activists?
Zorana Unković, a feminist and anti-fascist activist from Zagreb, sees Nada Dimić as "an incredible young woman with an indomitable spirit and unshakable ideals".
"The embodiment of a heroine and a role model for female and male fighters of her generation, and of every generation to come," she adds.
He says that her dedication and fearlessness are what he particularly admires about "the first female partisan in Croatia", but also "the ladder to which we can only aspire when it comes to women's struggle, the struggle for human freedom, political ideals and workers' rights".
However, it is difficult for her to identify with her character.
"It would be arrogant of me to compete with someone who gave his life for ideals at the age of 19," she believes.
He adds that "brave women of Iran who take off their hijabs and cut their hair" could stand "side by side" with her, as well as many other murdered "Marxists, revolutionaries and fighters" who gave their lives for freedom.
"She is not only a symbol of women's struggle, but of comradely struggle, of partisan ideals of freedom," concludes the activist.
Nada Dimić on the skin
Today, the image of Nada Dimić is worn by two girls in Serbia and Croatia on their own skin and according to their own wishes.
They were tattooed by Mirjana Radovanović, who says that she is glad that these are young women "who are not nostalgic and have no experience of life in Yugoslavia", but "recognize the same values that they themselves are fighting for".
"I'm glad when people decide to get a tattoo like this because I think it's politically and ideologically important to highlight such values," this visual artist told the BBC in Serbian.
Her artistic practice is related to the legacy of anti-fascism, and from that came a series of tattoos of partisan men and women.
He says that the importance of women's struggle during the Second World War is great, and that he does not want to single out Nada Dimić in this regard.
"She decided to join the anti-fascist struggle at a very young age, and I think that is very important because today it is easy to understand how those people entered the movement," Radovanović points out.
He also believes that Nada Dimić and other female members of the Assembly joined the fight "to ensure a better life for themselves after the war", which "was cruel even in the monarchy, except for the privileged minority", because they knew that "they would not get it with fascism".
"All those women who entered young and lost their lives should not be forgotten."
Heritage
Professor Goran Hutinec says that the "cult of Nada Dimić" began to be built quite early after the end of the war.
"She was respected and respected among the communists precisely because of her steadfastness and refusal to admit and tell her own name to the Ustashas," the historian believes.
She was, he says, one of the first folk heroines after the Second World War, and "her cult was additionally strengthened through the economy", since Zagreb's textile industry took her name in 1950.
His colleague from the University of Rijeka, Vjeran Pavlaković, points out that this knitwear factory, whose dilapidated building is still located in the center of Zagreb, "symbolized the emancipatory potential of socialist Yugoslavia, modernization, women's participation in the workforce and economic self-management - although the reality of the system was not always in accordance with the promised goals of the revolution".
"As a woman, an anti-fascist activist and ultimately a KPJ martyr, she was a strong symbol for the post-war period," he emphasizes.
He says that after liberation, busts of Nadi Dimić were erected in her native Divosel, Karlovac and Sisak, and that many streets throughout Yugoslavia bore her name.
After the breakup of Yugoslavia and the bloody wars of the 1990s, the monuments were removed and demolished, the factory went bankrupt, and a street with its name still exists in Poreč, a city on the Croatian peninsula of Istria.
"With the collapse of communism and the joint state, the memory of Nada Dimić shared the fate of many other anti-fascists in Croatia during the nineties, because the dominant narrative shifted towards the rehabilitation and even glorification of the defeated Ustashas," Pavlaković believes.
Remembering the national heroine today
The memory of Nada Dimić lives on in Serbia today in the name of the economic school in Zemun, the former Trade Academy, and the names of streets in Belgrade, Niš, Kragujevac Bor, Subotica and other places.
"I'm glad that Nada as a person is still important, that she survives and that there are women who deal with her image and activists who think that she is significant enough to carry her image on their skin," says artist Mirjana Radovanović.
The memory of the young revolutionary is preserved by certain non-governmental organizations and anti-fascist and feminist groups in Croatia.
The Zagreb Foundation for Others awards the "Nada Dimić" award to the residents of the Croatian capital who "left an important mark on the cultural and artistic field of the city", while in 2012 the Association of Anti-Fascist Fighters and Anti-Fascists of Croatia, in cooperation with the Serbian People's Council, organized a round table in Jasenovac on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the death of a Partisan woman.
"On the feminist scene in Croatia for the past few years, there have been various actions promoting women's and workers' rights, and Nada Dimić was chosen as one of the heroines who can be taken as an example of brave people who fight against injustice," says Goran Hutinec.
Nevertheless, Zorana Unković believes that her name does not occupy "an important enough place in the public discourse", while the historian Pavlaković believes that "Dimić is still waiting for a real return to the Croatian collective memory of anti-fascism".
"Instead of serving as an example of opposition to intolerance and resistance to fascism, she remains erased from Croatian memory, which is often ashamed of its anti-fascist heritage and the Serbian minority.
"And both are important for Croatia in developing a tolerant, modern and liberal-democratic society that can adequately face contemporary socio-economic challenges and the rise of radical right-wing populism throughout Europe," concludes Pavlaković.
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