brochure "Partizanski spomenik u Mostaru" (1980)
another document or proof of the memorial stone (e.g., a photograph).
Josip I. SOSA
JOSIP (Ivan) SOSA (also known as Jozo, Đuranović), born in Grude in 1912, lived in Mostar from 1933 onward. He worked as a baker in the bakery of Ante Ramljak in Mostar, where he became involved with the progressive workers’ movement. At the beginning of the war, he left Mostar, going first to Gorica and then to Imotski, from where he joined the Dalmatian Partisans in 1942. According to some accounts, he told his wife upon departing: “If I do not return home within two days, say that I have disappeared.”
He was captured in 1943 by the Ustaše, while serving as a courier, together with another fighter from Gacko, in a barn in Vučipolje near Posušje. He was taken to the prison in Mostar, where he remained for three days, and then transferred to Široki Brijeg, where, according to some sources, he was executed.
The Cultural Centre in Gorica once bore the name of Josip Sosa. On Fighters’ Day in 1963, on July 4th, a memorial plaque bearing his name was ceremonially unveiled on the Cultural Centre in Gorica by the SUBNOR Grude and the Grude Municipal Assembly. In Grude, in 1985, a monument to the fallen fighters of the People’s Liberation War and the victims of fascist terror was unveiled, and among the busts of the fighters was the bust of Josip Sosa.
Seferović, Mensur (1961): Prozivka na Tjentištu, “Veselin Masleša”, Sarajevo; spomenicinob.info, Vlado Bogut, Ljubo Leko (2014): “Grudski žrtvoslov, Drugi svjetski rat i poraće”
Photo of the memorial plaque: S. Demirović (2018). Photo of the fighter: Vlado Bogut, Ljubo Leko (2014): “Grudski žrtvoslov, Drugi svjetski rat i poraće”.
Do you have more information about this fighter? Share your stories and photographs. Let's keep the memory alive!
