Fatima A. ĐONKO

Fatima (Avdo) Đonko, a housewife, actively supported the anti-fascist movement together with her son Salko Đonko. She was killed on January 14, 1944, in Mostar during an Allied air raid.

Enver Ćemalović recorded the following memory of Salko and his mother Fata:

Fata’s image as a fighting woman, with her courage, natural intelligence, selflessness, and maternal care for all of us, was a source of inspiration for my work and gave meaning to every sacrifice I made in the National Liberation War. Fata Đonko remains a cherished memory for all of us who had contact with her — a true revolutionary from Mostar, like so many women from every neighborhood in our city.

Halfway along the road from Dobrč to Brasina, I ordered a rest, and immediately afterward we heard the roar of airplane engines. About 200 Allied planes, bombers escorted by fighters, flew overhead. They bombed Mostar and the airfield. Anti-aircraft artillery fired at the planes and, as far as we could see, managed to shoot down two. Parachutes appeared in the sky, and the crews of the downed planes descended into the Neretva Valley and toward the Mostar plain.

Sitting next to me was Salko Salče Đonko, and it never even crossed our minds that his mother Fata would be killed in that bombing — something we learned from couriers on our next trip to Mostar. Fata lived in Pothum, in a secluded house on Haremski sokak. We were neighbors. The house was an ideal base, easily secured with two guards at the ends of the alley, and it was possible to escape through the gardens and the Radobolja River.

Fata lost her husband early and struggled to raise her two children, Duda and Salko, by working in the homes of wealthier families and occasionally at the tobacco factory. Her daughter Duda died young from tuberculosis, and Salko began learning a trade.

In the summer of 1941, I involved Fata in work for the People’s Liberation Movement (NOP). Her house became a gathering place for us communists and a storage site for weapons and various supplies for the partisans. Salko became inseparable from my half-brother Ekrem, and both later worked in the SKOJ (League of Communist Youth) organization and at the mill. He was ready to carry out any task.

Milan Matić, a bakery worker from the village of Veljaci near Ljubuški, lived at Fata’s house. He was involved in the underground movement. Milan often brought ammunition, and sometimes a hand grenade, from the Northern Camp where he worked. He stood guard during our party meetings.