Nikola M. MILIĆEVIĆ 

NIKOLA MILIĆEVIĆ* ZEC, son of MARKO, born on August 21, 1925, in Mostar. He learned the trade of auto mechanics. He became a member of the Communist Youth League (SKOJ) in 1941. As a member of SKOJ and an underground operative, he was assigned to the “Poglavnik’s Bodyguard Battalion” in Zagreb, together with Mladen Antunović and Ante Matić, for intelligence activities. When he obtained leave, he joined the partisans. According to one source, “they did not gain significant sources of information and eagerly awaited their first leave and arrival in Mostar to join the partisan Konjic battalion. (The Ustasha uniforms in which they arrived among the partisans were exploited for anti-partisan propaganda by the Chetniks during the ‘Chetnik coup’ in 1942).” He died as a fighter of the Mostar Battalion and a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in April 1944, shortly before the detachment was incorporated into the Thirteenth Herzegovinian Brigade.

Mensur Seferović left two brief notes about Nikola Milićević in the book “Mostar Medleys”:

Regarding his departure to the Ustasha in 1941, in the words of Mladen Antunović (p. 250): “I was not pleased when I heard that a few of us were supposed to wear Ustasha uniforms,” recalled Mladen Antunović, a retiree in Belgrade. “Fear could be seen on everyone’s face. It was as if everyone wondered what needed to be done among the Ustasha, where to go, what if we were discovered, a great ordeal. We knew how much the Ustasha were hated among the people, that you couldn’t tell anyone, not even your closest neighbor and friend, that you had put on the uniform of the black or yellow Ustasha executioners for the Party’s mission. None of us were cowards, but we were afraid of becoming marked sheep for years to come. At the second meeting, Mehmed Dvizac came again and told us that it was decided for Ilija Tomić, Nikola Milićević, also known as Zec, and me to go to the Ustasha. I was trembling all over.”

Regarding his departure to the partisans in 1943: “In May, Nikola Milićević also arrived in Mostar. He was impatient and requested leave ‘due to his mother’s illness,’ but he didn’t return to Zagreb. He was told to report to the German military police in the South Camp, where he completed a one-month course. In the meantime, the fifth offensive had ended, and fighters from the disbanded Mostar Battalion unexpectedly arrived in Mostar. Nikola Milićević, although he was a military policeman, went into hiding until the end of July 1943 when several fighters from the Mostar Battalion and other people from Mostar went to the village of Dobrč in Podveležje (…).”

*In the book “Memorial Book of Mostar 1941-1945,” the surname is written as MILIČEVIĆ.