brochure “Partizanski spomenik u Mostaru” (1980)
book “Spomenica Mostara 1941-1945.”
another document or proof of the memorial stone (e.g., a photograph).
Herman A. ALTKORN
HERMAN ALTKORN, also known as HODŽA, son of ABRAHAM or ADAM, born on February 17, 1890* in Jagielusko, Poland. He was an electrician who worked as a miner in the Brown Coal Mine in Mostar. He was an activist in the labor movement and a trade union official. He was arrested by the Ustaše in July 1941 in Mostar, taken to a camp in Pag, and then executed in the Gospić camp*.
According to the recollection of Dane Milićević, one of the surviving prisoners from the Gospić camp:
“On those dreadful nights, they took the men from the other stable. The next morning, the Italians actually started to arrive. The Ustaše quickly loaded us onto a truck and took us to the Gospić train station. There, we found train cars full of prisoners with whom the Ustaše were fleeing from the Italians. I saw surviving Jews from the camp in Pag, among whom was the well-known Herman Altkorn, also known as Hodža, a mining worker and trade union official from Mostar. He told me that all the Mostar residents he knew, including my father, Rade Bitanga, Vaso Tošić, and others, were killed in that camp.”
In 1999, a Holocaust memorial was erected at the Jewish cemetery in Mostar, which includes Herman’s name.
* According to the information from the book “Spomenica Mostara 1941-1945,” the year of birth is 1890, and the place of death is Gospić.
Konjhodžić, Mahmud (1981): “Mostarke”: fragmenti o revolucionarnoj djelatnosti i patriotskoj opredjeljenosti žena Mostara, o njihovoj borbi za slobodu i socijalizam, Opštinski odbor SUBNOR-a Mostar; https://www.portalnovosti.com/mostarke-otpor-u-zicama; https://www.cidom.org/?p=11981; http://www.most.ba/108/083.aspx
Photo of the memorial plaque: S. Demirović
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