Salko M. PEZO 

SALIH SALKO PEZO, son of MAHMUT, born on November 18, 1921, in Mostar. A student at the Teacher Training School in Mostar. Football player for FC “Velež”. Member of SKOJ since 1938 and KPJ since 1940, secretary of the League of Communist Youth (SKOJ) branch at the Teacher Training School. Arrested and imprisoned multiple times. In one of the first groups of volunteers led by Savo Medan from Mostar in mid-August 1941. Due to the situation at hand, he was sent back to Mostar for underground work, serving as the secretary of the SKOJ City Committee for Mostar, a member of the City Committee of Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) for Mostar, and a member of the Regional Committee of SKOJ for Herzegovina. He joined the partisan detachment again in April 1942. Delegate of the founding congress of USAOJ in Bihać in December 1942, where he was elected as a member of the National Board of USAOJ. SKOJ leader of the battalion, political commissar of the platoon in the 3rd battalion. He was killed in Krekovi near Tjentište on June 13, 1943, during the V enemy offensive at Sutjeska. His comrades remember him as a “great lover of painting (…) and he carried a sketchbook with him on Tisovica where he worked on drawings. That was his greatest pleasure.”

EXCERPT FROM LITERATURE:

“Meetings were held – party, SKOJ, platoon, and even battalion meetings – all aimed at strengthening order and discipline in the units, where nothing good was mentioned, only weaknesses were discussed. There were also very successful events, which were taken care of by the Cultural and Entertainment Committee of the Battalion, led by Ismet Kreso, with the wholehearted assistance of Salko Pezo, the youth leader of the Battalion. Pezo was a teacher and a true educator in the education and upbringing of our fighters. The program of the events was diverse, and the greatest entertainment for the fighters and the people was provided by our ‘sparrow,’ who humorously shared stories from the life of the Battalion and beyond.”

As remembered by Angelina Draganić (Lambić):

“I met Salko Pezo in 1941, practically, since his arrival in the Konjic Partisan Battalion. An impeccable communist, persuasive, pleasant, close, and at the same time militarily authoritative. One could not refuse his order. Not because he would say it in a military-like manner, decisively, but because it sounded human, with a convincing need for execution. He was like that from the first days of his arrival in the Battalion, I remember him like that from Sutjeska, where he was a company commissar in the Mostar Battalion. His words left a deep impression on those who listened to him. And he had to be trusted. Such power of words! I remember him telling us:

“The fight is hard, it will last a long time, but you have to keep going. We will win! Many of us will not see victory, but if we do not see it, younger generations will enjoy the fruits of the revolution.”

I remember the fateful July 13, 1943. at the Sutjeska. The battalion found itself close to the breakthrough line, right next to the place where Sava Kovačević died. It was boiling like hell, radiating from all sides. The enemy, who felt well that he was losing his positions, that the partisans were breaking through his ring which, so to speak, he had been holding until the day before, turned on us from all sides.

Suddenly, in that hell, I see Comrade Salko. He was hit. I ran and saw that the wound was severe. I no longer remember what he looked like at that moment, the only thing I saw was his look, which is deeply etched in my memory. The severe wound was bleeding profusely – he was shot in the chest. His gaze was fixed on me, waiting for help, but he wanted to help me himself. At one point, he even made a movement to help me move his motionless hand. He spoke in a low voice: “It’s fine, Angela, it’s fine!” He repeated it a few more times, and then his voice, full of optimism, turned into a whisper…

The news of his death was received with sadness in the Battalion, with disbelief that prevented people from uttering the words “he died”. Salko’s name was repeatedly pronounced, from fighter to fighter. The words about his death came with disbelief, a wish that it wasn’t true…“