Karlo V. BATKO, national hero

KARLO BATKO, son of VALENTIN, born on May 17, 1907, in Sarajevo, lived in Mostar since 1914. A locksmith, member of the League of Communist Youth (SKOJ) since 1922 and Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) since 1928, football player for FC “Velež”. As a young locksmith worker, he joined the labor movement in 1925, and in 1928, he became a member of the then-illegal Communist Party of Yugoslavia. After the imposition of the January 6th dictatorship in 1929, he was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison by the State Protection Court for his party activities, which he served in Sremska Mitrovica. After his release in 1931, he returned to Mostar and dedicated himself fully to party work. He was a member of the City Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Mostar in 1932 and 1936, a member of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Herzegovina in 1937 and 1940, and a member of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1938. He actively worked on the establishment and strengthening of party organizations in the Mostar area. In 1940, he was one of the organizers of the miners’ strike. He was arrested and persecuted several times. After the April War and the occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, he actively worked on organizing the uprising, becoming a partisan fighter. He joined the Battalion in August 1941 in the Nevesinje region and later in the Bileća region, participating in battles at Divin, Fatnica, and Plana. He spent some time in the Stolac region but returned to Mostar and, according to the task, went north as the secretary of the District Committee of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia for the Kalinovik-Foča area. He served as the political commissar of a company and a battalion in the Detachment. Later, in May-June 1942, during the Third Enemy Offensive, the fighters of the Kalinovac Partisan Detachment joined the newly formed Tenth Hercegovina Assault Brigade, where he served as the political commissar of a company in the Fifth Battalion. He died from an aerial bomb near Konjic on March 3, 1943, along with Commander Rade Španac. By the decree of the Presidium of the People’s Assembly of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia on July 5, 1951, he was proclaimed a People’s Hero.

He was described as a “prominent communist from Mostar, an older comrade, and probably one of the best communists that this city had, (…) who, through his personal example, educated the proletarians and communists of Mostar. He was a wonderful person and an excellent comrade who went through many units, instilling revolutionary consciousness in our youth in the struggle for freedom.”