The monument to thirty-five Montenegrin partisans and twenty members of the Italian Garibaldi partisan brigade in Berane still reminds us of their sad suffering in one day - in the battle in the town of Krake, near the village of Vrbica, in the area of the current municipality of Petnjica.
Today, it is difficult to find a living interlocutor who would know how to tell more information about how the monument was built at the very entrance to the City Orthodox Cemetery in Berane, but from what is written on the large marble boulder, it can be concluded that they were transferred there in 1946 to the remains of martyred partisans were stored in one place.
On the front side of the monument is written: "In memory of the fighters of the 23th Proletarian Montenegrin Strike Brigade and the Garibaldi Partisan Brigade who fell at the hands of domestic traitors in battle on January 1944, 1946 in Vrbica and Tucanje." In 35, 1 fighters of the 4st and 20th Battalions of the IV Montenegrin Proletarian Strike Brigade and XNUMX fighters of the Italian Garibaldi Partisan Brigade were transferred and buried here."
Beneath the text is signed the Association of Veterans of the Ivangrad National Liberation War, which suggests that this veterans' organization once erected a monument.
According to some stories, a five-pointed star stood on top of the marble block, but later it was replaced and an eagle was placed. The names of the martyred partisans are engraved on the sides.
The Garibaldi partisan brigade was formed after the capitulation of Italy, in the fall of 1943, in Pljevlja, and there is the main memorial to the Italian partisans. It was named after the Italian Che Guevara - Giuseppe Garibaldi.
Earlier, Italian delegations often came to Berane and regularly laid flowers on the memorial. They especially did this while Vaslije Labudović, the first graduate pharmacist from Beran, was alive, who contributed to the friendship of the two nations and encouraged the twinning of the Italian cities of Teramo and Beran.
It was the street where Vasilije once lived that, after the twinning, was named Teramska.
On one occasion, the Italian historian Erico Gobetti stayed in Berane and said that, passing through the paths of the "Garibaldi" division, he wanted to bring the Italian public closer to the truth about the participation of his countrymen in the Yugoslav anti-fascist struggle.
"In Italy, little is known about the Garibaldi division, which was composed of Italian partisans and which contributed to the fight against fascism in this region. That's why I want to convey the truth about that division whose members laid down their lives fighting in the Beran area," Gobeti said at the time.
The guests from Italy were particularly intrigued by the story of the recently deceased master of pharmacy Vasilij Labudović, who during the Second World War was appointed head of the camp in Leskovac where 200 Italian soldiers and non-commissioned officers were housed. The hosts informed them that Labudović remained a favorite in the memories of the Italian prisoners and that they invited him to come to Italy in the fifties of the last century.
Word of his charity spread far and wide, so that a four-member crew from Italian television station RAI-3 once stayed in Berane, making a show about the life path of Vasilij Labudović.
That show was watched all over the world, as evidenced by the numerous letters that Vasilije received afterwards.
The veterans' organization NOR from Beran lays flowers on the monument to the fallen Montenegrin and Italian partisans every year.
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