← Back to the front page

A Ballerina Who Stabbed an SS Guard With a Stiletto and Other Historic Rebels

Khalid Elhassan August 10, 2020 34 min

15. Going Out in a Total Badass Way

Stjepan Filipovic, whose memorable final words made him a Yugoslav hero. Pozitivno

Stjepan Filipovic was captured by the Nazis in February, 1942, and sentenced to be publicly hanged in Valjevo’s town square. At death’s door, he had the courage and presence of mind to seize the moment and defy his captors during his last seconds on earth. Mounting the gallows with the hangman’s noose around his neck, he defiantly thrust his hands in the air and struck a dramatic pose that was captured on camera. He then urged the gathered crowd to continue the struggle against the Nazi oppressors and their Yugoslav collaborators.

Stjepan Filipovic statue in Valjevo. Executed Today

Just before he was hanged, Filipovic became an anti-fascist icon, by crying out: “Death to fascism, freedom to the people!” It was a preexisting partisan slogan, and Filipovic’s martyrdom helped popularize it among the resistance. After the war, Filipovic was designated a national hero of Yugoslavia. A monumental statue was erected in Valjevo in his honor, replicating his Y-shaped pose in a style reminiscent of a Goya painting.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.