The Vuković family – entirely eradicated

None of the Vuković family members survived to see liberation. The family’s father, Gojko Vuković, a sheet metal worker by profession, was a pre-war communist who led the Mostar organization from the Vukovar Congress of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in 1920 until his death in 1934. He was a member of the Central Committee of the KPJ and participated in the 6th Congress of the Comintern in 1928. He died on July 6, 1934, in Mostar due to a fall from the roof of a house where he was working as a sheet metal worker.

After Gojko’s death, his family – wife Zlatka and children Mladen, Slobodan, Radojka, and Rade – continued to actively participate in the revolutionary movement in Mostar. A party meeting was held in their house on July 31, 1941, during which the Ustasha police raided. Gojko’s wife Zlatka (1893-1941) threw a bomb to create an escape opportunity for the participants of the meeting (an event known as the “first explosion in Mostar”). Zlatka was arrested and executed on the same day. Son Slobodan managed to escape to the village of Rodoč, but he was arrested on the same day and shot the next day, August 1, together with Jusuf Čevro, who became national hero. The other children of Gojko also perished during the war – the eldest son Mladen died in Romanija in 1942; daughter Radojka was captured after the Battle of Sutjeska and later killed in the Jasenovac concentration camp; the youngest son Rade was killed at Ivan-Sedlo during the final battles for liberation.

After the war, the city of Mostar rebuilt the Vuković family’s home and turned it into a memorial house with an exhibition about their life and work. A bust of Gojko Vuković once stood in the courtyard but, according to eyewitness testimonies, was thrown into the Neretva River during the 1990s war. A memorial plaque still stands on the wall of the house.