Rafael Batini is one of hundreds of partisan fighters, sympathizers and collaborators who were shot by the Italian fascists from July 1941 to November 20, 1944 in a bay between two hills in the town of Senjak in Pljevlja.
As a sign of memory and respect for the young man, the people of Pljevlja erected his bust a few meters away from the monument erected to all those shot in that place.
Two names are written on the bust - Rafael Batini and Mišo Cvetković, and both belong to the same man.
He received the first at birth and used the second during World War II. Vidoje Despotović, the long-time president of the Organization of Fighters in Pljevlja, says that he used the name Mišo Cvetković Batini so that the Germans, if they captured him, would not discover his Jewish origin.
"Batini was born in 1910 in Bitola and is a Jew by origin. He was a member of the Communist Party of Mexico. He finished university there, after which he returned to Bitola. Before the war, he was sentenced to three years in prison, and in 1941 he managed to escape from prison and move to Sandžak. He was party secretary in Nova Varoš, and then he was elected organizational secretary of the KPJ Regional Committee for Sandžak. On July 8, 1942, in the area of the village of Meljak, he was captured by Chetniks from Meljak, who handed him over to the Italians in Pljevlja, and on June 12, 1941, he was shot in Senjak with other patriots," Despotović told "Vijesta".
As a sign of gratitude for the contribution he made in the fight against the German-Italian occupiers, a street in the Pljevac settlement of Moćevac bears his partisan name.
Despotović says that all the occupiers, especially the German-Italian ones, used Senjak to execute patriots and dissidents.
It is assumed that the German-Italian occupier shot close to 300 people in Senjak, but there are no precise data on this.
"Bones were found and removed for eighty of them and moved to a common grave in Stražica with other fighters from the Second World War," Despotović said.
In the municipality of Pljevlja, Despotović points out, there are five mass graves where fallen fighters from the Second World War rest.
"412 fallen soldiers rest on Stražica, 214 of whom died in the Battle of Pljeval. In the village of Bobovo, there is a memorial tomb where 94 fallen fighters from all over Yugoslavia are buried during the Fifth Offensive. In Kosanica, there is a memorial tomb with 42 fallen fighters from all over Yugoslavia killed during the Fifth Offensive, and in Kruševo there is a grave with 43 fallen fighters. "There is a grave in Šuli where 28 soldiers who died in the Fifth Offensive were buried," Despotović said.
In those tombs are the remains of four national heroes who were not born in Pljevlja.
"In the monument on Stražica rest the national heroes who died in the Battle of Pljeval: Vuk Knežević, political commissar of the Jezersko-Saran battalion, Dušan Obradović, commander of that battalion, Petar Jovićević, machine gunner from the Lovcen battalion, Lazar Radojević, deputy battalion commander. A total of 106 fighters who participated in the Battle of Pljeval were declared national heroes. The fifth national hero who is not from Pljevlje, but rests in this city, is Boško Buha, who is buried in the cemetery in Varoš. Boško Buha was born in Virovitica, and his father Rade came to Pljevlja several times, and I also went to Virovitica. I asked him why he did not transfer his son's remains to his native Virovitica, he told me: Boško Buha has Pljevlja, it is his town and Boško is from Pljevlja, because the people of Pljevlja buried him and took care of his grave".
Five people from Pljevlja were declared national heroes - Velimir Jakić, Vladimir Knežević Volođa, Komnen Cerović, Živko Džuver and Radoje Kontić. All of them except Jakić, who after his death in 1946 was buried in Belgrade, rest in the tomb of national heroes in Gorica.
The monument will be "washed" with 10.000 euros
The Municipality of Pljevlja intends to allocate 20 euros this year for the reconstruction of the monument on Senjak, which was erected on November 1985, 10.000 in the grounds of the Prvi decembar factory.
In recent years, the monument has been rather ruined and neglected.
"The local administration plans to allocate around 10.000 euros for the reconstruction of the memorial ossuary in Senjak. Several hundred people were shot at that place, and their remains were buried in a common grave. The Italian occupier carried out the most mass shooting in Senjak on May 4, 1942, when they took 32 hostages out of retaliation, including 10 captured partisan fighters," said the Municipality of Pljevlja.
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