Pava J. MILETIĆ 

PAULINA PAULA PAVA MILETIĆ, daughter of JURE, born on January 25, 1922, in Mostar, a hairdresser, member of the League of Communist Youth (SKOJ) since 1940 and Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) since 1941. In the summer of 1941, she was part of a group of SKOJ members captured during a SKOJ meeting in Cernica. She was one of the SKOJ organizers of the women’s protest in December 1941 during the famine (the City Administration distributed animal fodder, known as “viktorija” in the witty local terminology). The protest involved 700-800 women from Mostar, loudly demanding “Bread, bread for our children!” and requesting an increase in bread rations from 4.5 kg to 9 kg per person. She was arrested for her activities in strikes before and during the war. In December 1941, she joined the Battalion as a youth leader of a company, a fighter in the 3rd Battalion, and a bomber (“whenever needed, among the first voluntary bombers”). In Šćit near Prozor, where there was a partisan hospital, she managed to uncover a conspiracy between certain priests and the Ustaše from Duvno, thus preventing a Ustaše massacre of wounded soldiers (although the hospital was later attacked and destroyed by Chetniks). She died during the Fifth Offensive in 1943 on the Sutjeska River, as a severely wounded person on a stretcher in the Piva Canyon near Čokova Luka in June 1943. According to one source, she asked her comrades to put her out of her misery to relieve both her and themselves. She was described as a “fearless fighter,” an “honorable and brave communist,” the “most popular fighter in her company,” a “skillful organizer,” and an “ingenious intelligence officer.” After the war, she was celebrated in the song “Mostarska mati” by Mostarske kiše (full text in BSH)

EXCERPTS FROM LITERATURE:

On women’s demonstrations:

“With such and similar shouts, the women gathered at Tepa and then headed to the Municipality. They did not find the chief, so they continued to his apartment, where they protested due to hunger. Then they proceeded to the Administration of City Supplies, where they scattered some stored food items but did not take anything with them. Reporting to the Greater County of Hum about the demonstrations on December 4, 1941, under number 13397/41, the administrator of the County Police, Mate Roko, writes, among other things: ‘…As instigators and participants in the mentioned riots, the following individuals were arrested: Paula Miletić, Bira Dizdarević, Muruveta Ćemalović, and Zehra Vejzović, and an arrest warrant was issued for Grebin and Arpadžić. All the mentioned individuals are quite well-off, and since they are known to this authority as prominent communists, there is suspicion that the background of the organized demonstrations is of a communist nature.’ (K.D. Miletić, ‘Italian Reoccupation of Mostar (September 1941 – June 1943),’ Hercegovina no. 2, p. 335)”

On the action in Šćit:

“In Šćit, in the Prozor region, there was a hospital with many wounded partisans. The Ustaše were in collusion with certain friars from the local monastery (where there were also several sympathizers of the partisans), and many Ustaše had secretly arrived in the liberated territory. In agreement with the friars, they hid in houses. A treacherous Ustaše attack on the hospitals, on the wounded and sick, was being prepared. As a Croatian woman, Pava managed to skillfully infiltrate into that conspiracy and, thanks to that, she was able to trace the criminals in time. It was through her merit that the conspiracy was uncovered, the enemy conspirators were captured, and the attack was thwarted (…)”

On Pava’s death, from three accounts:

“It was difficult for me when I also saw Pava Miletić on the stretcher. Although she received an apparently harmless wound on her head, she was completely disabled. Her nervous system was damaged and she could not even take a step on her own, let alone stand up stretcher. I knew that the wound was incurable, but I bandaged Pava, and she, although in such a condition, constantly encouraged her comrades around her.”

“Surviving fighters recall a meeting in the woods. During the breakthrough of the enemy encirclement at the Piva River, in the fifth offensive, on a stretcher, there was the well-known fighter in the workers’ movement, the fearless Pava Miletić. Her head was bandaged. She was being carried by Italian prisoners. In Pava’s almost extinguished pupils, a glimmer of hope and joy flashed when she recognized her good comrade Samija Bubić, with whom she had worked together on political matters – Samija on the left bank and Pava on the right bank of the Neretva River. When she recognized Samija as she approached very closely, Pava whispered in a barely audible voice, ‘Eva, comrades are trying to save me, but they cannot save me (…)’” (M. Konjhodžić, Mostar Women, p. 142)

“Among the wounded at the Central Hospital was Pava Miletić, who had previously been transferred from our Battalion to the Igmanska Company of the 2nd Battalion of our Brigade. The Igmanci had grown fond of Pava as an exceptionally honorable and brave communist; they considered her the most popular fighter of their company. When Pava learned that our Battalion was passing nearby, she called Remzija Duranović and asked him, ‘Remza, you know who I am, you are my comrade. I am aware that I am gravely wounded and that there is no salvation for me.’ Pava then handed her pistol to Remzija and said, ‘Please, Remza, kill me, and if you survive, return the pistol to Živko Jošilo, I received it from him.’ Remza returned and informed the comrades about Pava’s request. None of the Mostar residents, who knew Pava well, could gather the strength. Šefik Kudra stepped forward, went to Pava, and fired the fatal shots from her own pistol. Pava has forever left a memory of her heroic revolutionary spirit and her fight for freedom in the hearts of Mostar’s youth.” (E. Ćemalović, Mostar Battalion, p. 216)