10 Rugged Details Surrounding Lepa Radić, The Teenager Who Died Standing Up To Nazis

6 /10 Meeting The Heroes

The Partisans she was part of were led by Commander Jospi Broz, also known as “Tito.”

On one of Lepas missions, she met the commander when she took a group of younger people to harvest grain near an enemy position and bring it back as field supplies.

When the troop inspection was due, she brought forward traditional gifts from the frontier to show their bravery in retrieving them.

5 /10 No Second Chances

Lepa was captured in November of 1941 by the Ustase, the Croatian fascist movement that was working with the Nazis as an undercover Partisan agent.

She and her sister, Dara, were held for their information and lasted long enough to escape without providing the enemy with any details on her allies.

She spent over a month in prison before she could get out and joined with the 7th Partisan Company of the 2nd Krajiski Detachment immediately.

4 /10 Case White

The Nazis went on the offensive directly against the Partisans in operation called “Case White.”

This began a long chain of battles that would see the Partisans nearly wiped out over the following years and forced their existing members into hiding.

Members like Lepa, who remained active and undercover two years later, took an active role once more during the Battle of Neretva by transporting wounded troops to a shelter in Grmec.

3 /10 Prinz Eugen

Lepa was finally captured in February of 1943 as a result of the Battle of Neretva. The 7th SS Volunteer Mountain Division, known as Prinz Eugen, routed the Partisan troops and made as many captures as possible.

Lepa was among the living they took in and transported her to Bosanka Krupa, far from her allies in Croatian territory.

They tortured her for information for several days but ultimately failed. As such, she was sentenced to death by public hanging for her failure to give in.

2 /10 Final Words

Lepa, then 17, was ushered up to a platform and had a noose put around her neck. As they did, she declared: “Long live the Communist Party, and partisans!

Fight, people, for your freedom! Do not surrender to the evildoers! I will be killed, but there are those who will avenge me!”

She was given one last opportunity on the spot for a pardon if she revealed the plans for further dissidents among her allies.

Her response was: “I am not a traitor of my people. Those whom you are asking about will reveal themselves when they have succeeded in wiping out all you evildoers, to the last man.”

1 /10 Unprecedented Defiance

Lepa was hung on the spot that day. The Nazi report on her execution called her a bandit girl and declared that she had “unprecedented defiance.”

She did not buckle or lose her conviction even as she was set up to die. Even when she knew she would be killed, she held fast to her beliefs.

She was given the Order of the People’s Hero award in 1951, one of the nation’s highest military honors. She was the youngest person to receive it in the war, eternally 17 and defiant beyond death.