The German-Italian occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and the establishment of the criminal regime of the Independent State of Croatia in April 1941 almost immediately led to atrocities, primarily against the Serbian, Jewish, and Roma populations, but also against other regime opponents.
The Day of the Uprising in BiH was commemorated on June 27th, in memory of the action by guerrilla units that on June 27th, 1941, attacked and liberated Drvar and Bosansko Grahovo and several smaller gendarmerie posts in this area of Bosanska Krajina.
Marko Attila Hoare, in his book “The Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War,” notes that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia began planning the uprising immediately after the occupation of Yugoslavia, but the communists believed that the working class would be the main force of resistance. However, Ustase’s crimes forced Serbian peasants to start an armed struggle for survival, overshadowing the urban struggle.
Nevertheless, the communists entered the uprising with a well-developed structure led by Svetozar Vukmanovic Tempo as the commander of the Provincial Headquarters for BiH. The Provincial Headquarters commanded four Regional Headquarters: Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bosanska Krajina, and Herzegovina.
“The partisan movement in BiH had a specific Bosnian character, as it was organized on the BiH platform, under the command of a unified BiH center and organized by ethnically mixed BiH communists,” notes Hoare.
The German invasion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) on June 22nd was also a signal to the communists in Yugoslavia to start an armed uprising. The Central Committee of the Communist Party called the people of Yugoslavia to rise on July 4th. After this call, the first uprising began in Serbia on July 7th, then in Montenegro on July 13th, and Slovenia on July 22nd.
The uprising in BiH began on July 27th, but it is necessary to highlight that Serbian peasants had risen against the Independent State of Croatia in eastern Herzegovina even before this date. However, this was essentially an ideologically unstructured peasant uprising threatened with extermination by the Ustase regime.
In July, according to Rasim Hurem in the book “BiH in World War II,” several guerrilla units numbering up to about 80 people, more combat groups or insurgent groups, and two sabotage groups were formed in Bosanska Krajina.
After numerous crimes committed by the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) and Ustase in the Bosanska Krajina area, an attack was carried out on Ustase garrisons in Drvar and the surrounding areas at dawn on July 27th. These units managed to capture the town. Drvar remained a free town for most of the national liberation struggle until 1945.
Although at the very beginning of the uprising in 1941, the majority of the insurgents were Serbs, the Communist Party sought to shape the uprising ideologically on a patriotic basis towards BiH to prevent the uprising from remaining purely Serbian. Ultimately, this policy yielded results, and a significant number of Croats and Bosniaks joined the uprising.
Challenges in the initial mobilization were also presented by the tendency of insurgents, as Hoare notes, to loot and kill Muslims and Croats, as well as the partisan alliance with the Chetniks. An example is the Muslim company founded in Romanija in October 1941, which grew into a battalion with 250 members. As the Chetniks did not trust this unit and attacked Muslim villages, many members deserted, and commander Mujo Hodzic Crni sought and received assistance from the Ustase.
The national liberation struggle, along with the defense of BiH in the aggression from 1992 to 1995, is one of the most significant and largest events in the history of BiH. The uprising on July 27th symbolically marked the beginning of the fight that led to the joint liberation of BiH from the Nazi occupier, Klix.ba writes.
