HELL HATH NO FURY – the poetry of women Partisans in Yugoslavia 1941 – 1945

‘You who burned my house and killed my child, who shelters

beneath a foreign wing, a traitor who accepts a salary from the

enemy! Did you know that I carry a firearm now? I’ll get you!’ (1)

With the barrel of her gun up his nose, he pleads that he only did what he was ordered to do, but the feeble excuse doesn’t save him.

‘I have a gun always ready,’ she replies with the same mercy he showed her. ‘Aim that bullet into the disgusting fascist! We will obliterate the black blood of fascism forever.' (2) (3)

This female Partisan is well aware that her old mother is sitting at home worrying about her, yet the urge to fight is too strong to resist.

She writes, 'The struggle was difficult, bloody and angry. Everything is broken, falling apart, crumbling. Beside the narrow muddy path you still experience the smell of spilled blood. Yes, many young lives fell, young patriots, heroes. The struggle was an appalling Golgotha and those heroes, mother, were your children. I know that you worry, mother, but I can’t help you now. I still feel that the only place for me is in the brigade. Believe me, mother! The hour is near when I will return to your place for ever, and then surely your wounded heart will stop suffering.' (5)

Still concerned for her mother, she tries to explain how she feels, 'I am a woman fighter, a young partisan. I fight for my people as long as freedom does not prevail. I carry a rifle in my hand, I move boldly forward until the last village is free. Hurry everyone into the struggle, all those homes which are still reluctant to get involved, so that after this war you will experience no shame. When they ask you: "Where were you, comrade?" what will you say?' (6)

But here is a surprise! Her mother responds that she wishes she could be a Partisan nurse. The instant one young soldier recovers from his wound, she knows exactly what to tell him, 'And when his wound eased, I would say to him: “Go, comrade, and keep fighting! Avenge your other friends and don't let the enemy prevail. Don't complain about your young life while one of the bastards remains."' (4)

These women entered World War 2 without illusions. Their country was divided between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and their allies, the Ustasha in Croatia, and Hungary. Owing to the widespread destruction of their villages, they often had no homes to return to. At first, they supported the men as nurses and typists, and continued the same domestic tasks as they had in the villages. Then, early in 1942, at their request, Tito allowed them to bear rifles. 

Many girls joined the Partisans to avenge brothers who had fallen in battle. One such was the Croatian poet Anđelka Martić who, after the war, became a well-known translator and children's author. She wrote to her brother, 'You are no more, but the place in the line of soldiers at which you waited is not empty. Your young sister gladly took your heavy rifle in her tender hands. Now I am walking where you would have been, by the mountain, stifling my pain for you in a blaze of colour. Dream quietly, brother, I know what you wanted. Until the end your faithful rifle will be heard.' (7)

This poem was written in 1943 when Anđelka was 19. Many girls were younger. The British liaison officer to the Partisans, Fitzroy Maclean records a twelve-year-old girl throwing a grenade into a bunker full of Germans, all of whom were killed. She may well have been the girl who wrote this,

'I am a little female partisan ready every hour, so that in the fight I can avenge my dead brothers. One brother still remains to me, and I would give him all of my little heart, although I fall too. I will give my life for our dear people, I am fighting for freedom against the Kraut forces. I will give my life to defend mother, and in this way I will say to my own dear Dad: "Don't, Dad, regret the lives of your darling children. We must all fight to destroy the devil.” Therefore, I go forward into the holy battle to avenge my brothers, because freedom is here, shining at the door.' (8)

Freedom is a constant theme in the women's poetry. Even when they waited by graves, they looked towards freedom, and everywhere they recorded their love of the countryside. To me this reads as if nature was in their hearts and souls, therefore it understood their struggle.  

 'On the graves of our comrades the cyclamens are without number. Their red is everywhere in the forests through which the fighters move. We twitch the gentle stems, we roll up the small flowerets and our thoughts lead us back into a warm childhood. Once we ran in the woods, gathering red cyclamen, our song filled the paths and tracks. But today the forests have become the graves of our fallen comrades, the sons of our land. The scent of cyclamen spreads everywhere. It announces our freedom, and these graves stand as a symbol of victory.' (9)

'A lonely grave in a pine forest. Silence everywhere, only the wind whistles, while with tearful eyes a mother weeps for her son. But the forest trembles! It is ardent, it is quiet. The branches are sobbing, too! Why does your wood disturb the silence on a peaceful day, forest? It is because the trees are telling the story of that dead partisan. The forest is whispering to his mother about our struggle, about our joy when the people win, and about how much her son’s grave is worth.' (10)

I have found no reference to communism in the women's poetry, although there is some hero worship of Tito. From the poems I learned much about the beauty of the land and the connection of its people to it. Basil Davison, another British officer who worked with the Yugoslav Partisans, wrote that they weren't interested in politics, they just wanted their land back.      

'Bend your ear to the ground and listen to the murmur. That it is not the murmur of the wind. It is neither waterfalls nor mountain rapids, nor the moaning in the dense forest of firs. Because it rumbles loudly, vigorously and terribly from the strong walk of the victorious.' (12)

Meanwhile, our Partisan blows the smoke from the barrel of her gun. At her feet, the Nazi lies dead.

'Oh, my rifle, I will never part with you! You will be with me at the end of my wrist until the last day.' (1) She turns to her comrades. 'Through fire and blood, through the persecution of these violent monsters, through concentration camps, harshness and humiliation, you are welcome, women, mothers, our daughters, to your new baptism of fire. You have found yourselves alone at a terrible price, but you have created a new and combative woman.' (11)

Illustration, Zlatko Prica

  

Note: The poems are written almost entirely in rhythmic, rhyming stanzas. To replicate this in an English translation, I would have had to rewrite the poems, which I decided not to do.             

For a complete account of these courageous women, I recommend Women and Yugoslav Partisans by Jelena Batinić, Cambridge University Press, 2015. 

THE POEMS

from PO ŠUMAMA I GORAMA  (Through Forests and Mountains)

Poems of the Fighters of the National War of Liberation, Zagreb 1952

1. A Woman Under Arms by Franjo Mraz

2. Female Partisan on Guard Duty by Slavica Havelka III ćeta I bataljan II brigade 33 rd division

3.The Female Partisan by Gabro Vidović-Buco 1941

4. The Conscientious Mother by Života Čitaković borac, IV batajon “S.O” II. Prolet. brigada

5. To Mother by Verica Gabor, Hospital company, II brigade, XXXIII div.

6. Young Partisan by Ana Langeneker, delegate 1st Brigade 32nd division

7. To My Fallen Brother by Anđelka Martić 1943

8. A Female Partizan by Micika Biškup II. Brig., XXXIII, div.

9. Cyclamen by Anđelka Martić XXI. NO brigada

10. The Lonely Grave by Anđelka Martić

 
11. You Have Arisen by Mileva Jorgić I batajon, XVII. Ud. Brig. XXVIII, div. 

12. Spring by Nada Valenčić 1944

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WINTER BATTLES: BOSNIA 1941

December 1941: Fleeing the German destruction of Užice in Serbia,
Tito and the Partisans crossed the River Drina in winter,

climbed the mountains of Bosnia on the other side, 

and walked through the forests.    

Bosnia Herzegovina is a very mountainous country. In winter it is snow bound.

As someone who has actually driven through Bosnia in the snow, I have difficulty understanding why the Nazis thought that they could successfully invade the country. Even today, the roads seem to be a collection of mule tracks up and down the formidable Dinaric Alps with the addition of a few optimistic motorways. In Eastern Approaches (Jonathon Cape pub. 1949) Fitzroy Maclean writes, 'the Germans, with an elusive enemy, with unreliable allies, and without enough troops of their own to occupy the country effectively, could do little more than garrison the large towns and try to guard the lines of communication between them'.

However, during the war they needed bauxite from the mines near Mostar, the mediaeval capital of Herzegovina, for use in the construction of aeroplanes. Bosnia Herzegovina is also rich in coal, iron ore, zinc and lead. There were two ways to transport coal and ore to Germany. One was along the system of Bosnian narrow-gauge railways built by the Austrians which was extended between the wars to connect the coast to Belgrade, and the other was by sea to Trieste. The railways ran the gauntlet of demolition by the Partisans, and ships in the Adriatic risked being sunk by the Allies. 

The Partisans needed Bosnia to connect with their operational zones in Croatia, Dalmatia, Slovenia and Montenegro. The Nazis waged a series of offensives against them. They were assisted in this by the Italians, the Croatian Ustasha and the Chetniks. The Partisans held up to twenty-eight German divisions in Bosnia Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro which suited Churchill as the Allied Invasion of Sicily approached.

To understand the creation of the Partisans from a motley collection of local fighters engaged over the centuries in battling Turks, we must go to Bosnia in December 1941.

'Tito and his staff had formed a conception of Partisan warfare which deviated from past Soviet practice...where a Partisan unit was an auxiliary weapon of a regular army...To the Yugoslavs the Partisan units were the army, organized in mobile formations and in territorial defense units.'

from The Embattled Mountain, FWD Deakin, Oxford University Press, 1971.

Between December 1941 and May 1942 Tito formed five Proletarian Brigades of up to 1000 fighters each, as a military striking force under his direct command. By November they had increased to 28.

 Deakin continues, 

'The immediate task of the First Proletarian Brigade [in December 1941] was in ensure the hold of the Partisans over the key strategic areas of East Bosnia.'

The chief difference between these forces and the old local fighters was their mobility. They no longer defended only their home territories. 

'Long before the Allies, the Germans and Italians came to realize that the Partisans constituted a military factor of first rate importance against which a modern army was in many respects powerless.,,During each of [their seven] offensives, the extensive troop movements involved exposed [them] more than ever to the attacks and ambushes of the Partisans.'   

from Eastern Approaches by Fitzroy Maclean  

The contrast between the Partisans and the Germans was striking. The Germans in Bosnia were an efficient modern army, often using Alpine troops, with field kitchens and heavy artillery, 'lumbering, snail-like'. The Partisans were organized into small, mobile, lightly armed units who were familiar with the terrain. Much of the reason for the failure of the Germans to subdue the Partisans was their inability to embrace change. Tito told Deakin that the Germans 'had missed the lesson of creating mobile units with special anti-Partisan training. German forward units were always pressing behind the Yugoslavs and could never move with speed in self-contained columns to attack the Partisan forces from the rear. By not winning every grim race for each mountain crest, the German operation failed in its central purpose of annihilating the Yugoslav main operational group.' 

Yet the Germans were supported from the air, as we read in the poem The Bombed Forest by Josip Cazi, a Partisan Political Commissar. Papuk is a mountain in Slavonija in Croatia.

'This morning over Papuk a reconnaissance plane is searching, an ominous buzzard in that dreary first light...Death comes from the air, seeking with fiery claws the heart of the Partisans.'

The forest burns all day. Frightened animals run from the wildfire. 

'But at sunset Partisan songs sweep through it like an inexhaustible fountain. Along the slopes the column of soldiers moves out into the lowlands. They will go into action at night – the cycle of history is still turning. Above Papuk the fires die in the evening.' 

The typical enemy tactic was encirclement, and getting out of the ring was the Partisan aim, as we read in A Partisan Letter by Josip Cazi,

Yesterday, with a fiery partisan sledgehammer, we fought the fascist regiment on Mt Psunj, so hurriedly that I didn’t send you the letter I had written. We penetrated the ring by a stormy impact, blasting the fiery chain in a bloody assault. And while to you, my orphan, I write this letter, our columns on the September roads are singing of victory in the morning sun.

'The ring' is a constant observation in British eyewitness accounts. For example, from Partisan Picture' by Basil Davison (Bedford Books, 1946) at the Battle of the Neretva River, from January to March 1943,

To hold the ring the German Command then made an arrangement with 12,000 of Mihaylovitch's chetniks, commanded by Col. Stanisitch and General Djukanovitch and others, by which the latter would attempt to seal off any further partisan retreat by taking up positions along the left bank of the River Neretva. [The fourth offensive.]

The fifth offensive ended with the breaking of the ring in Montenegro and the escape of Tito and the main formations into Eastern Bosnia. That was in mid-June 1943 [the Battle of the Sutjeska].

An account of the same battle from The Heretic by Fitzroy Maclean (Harper and Brother, NY, 1957), 

'"Now that the ring is completely closed," ran a captured German operation order, "the communists will try to break through. You will ensure that no able-bodied man leaves the ring alive."' 

 'If guerillas are to survive in conditions comparable to those in which the Partisans were fighting,' wrote Fitzroy Maclean in Eastern Approaches, 'they must...deny the enemy a target.' The Partisans did this by 'extricating themselves, fading away, reappearing elsewhere and attacking the enemy where he least expected it.' They did not stand and fight to the last man. We see this 'escape in defeat' in the poem The Battle at Twenty Below Zero. Having sown the seeds of dissent among the local population, they returned later to the same area from which the enemy had driven them out. No author is given, but it was evidently written by one of the brigades in 1945. Gradina is in northwest Bosnia.  

The sun itself is flaming on these clouds,
and on their serene heights, a grey aspect,
but on the people and villages, snows are falling.

The hoarfrost is silent, the chirp of the birds dies.
Until the middle of November its sting has dug in.
But the heart of the people beats like a burning spark.

The column of soldiers steps into the blizzard, the angry ice,
on callused feet, by swift, firm steps.
The bold ones focus on the view in the distance where autumns produce bloody fruits.
In their hearts they carry spring blossoms and their deadly rifles are loaded with freedom.

Hurry! It will be an onslaught in Gradina,
Because Tito’s heart has won the battle of the cold,
An irresistible heart for freedom.

Shh! The soldiers creep on, still on track,
What leads to the bunker? The stone tower?
The shots…the cheers… and the escape in defeat?

Five dead Nazis and three frozen traitors,
Because the stiffs in uniform have no heart.
The thermometer says: twenty below zero.

 In a further post, I will comment on the poems written by and about female Yugoslav Partisans. To close, here is a small sample.   

From A Woman Under Arms by Franjo Mraz

Oh my rifle, I will never part with you!
You will be with me at the end of my wrist until the last day
To protect the paths of freedom along which the conquered are moving.
Tremble, look, listen to the woman warrior, the woman Partisan!

                                                                                     

(Images M Walker 2023. The first three images were taken driving from Belgrade over the Drina to Sarajevo and the last on the motorway from Sarajevo towards the Neretva River and Mostar.)

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Poems of World War 2 - Josip Cazi and the Yugoslav Partisans

        

 

Through Forests and Mountains - Kindle edition by Walker, Margaret. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

THE BOMBED FOREST  

                         by

                  Josip Cazi                                            

This morning Papuk was awoken at the crack of dawn, but not from birds chirping or squirrels clicking - a reconnaissance plane was searching over Papuk this morning, an ominous vulture in that dreary first light.

And round about the peak and its rugged sides ruby flares spread like blood into the branches of the firs, scarlet in the crimson dawn, as if snarling wings had cast over Papuk a bleeding squadron of fire.

The forest collapsed. Appalled and shaking, it roared and death flowed from the air like fiery rain. Lightning felled trees centuries old. Lucifer danced through Papuk and all its hell. Demons shrieked and shrieked all day, demanding the Partisans from the heart of the inferno.

But the heart they sought - in the mighty bosom of the mountain with its immense heartbeat - from it lashed hundreds of flaming arrows. From it shot thousands of thunderbolts, and the vultures slanted and slid. They overturned and fell in flames into the fiery forest. 

 

 

The wounded forest screamed appallingly: the cries of frightened deer and howling wolves by the thousand, in pain and with panicked voices. In the lake of fire flowers seemed to bloom, an inferno hissed from the surging flames, yelping and reeling.


All day Papuk was shaken, thundering and booming, all day Lucifer danced beside Papuk.

But now it is quietened and, as the day wanes, the glowing fires, in a hundred colours proud and exquisite, quiver in the forest, my mother.


And at sunset, Partisan songs sweep through it like an inexhaustible fountain. Along the slopes the column of soldiers moves out into the lowlands. They will go into action at night – the cycle of history is still turning. Above Papuk the fires die in the evening.

            MEETING 

                 by 

          Josip Cazi 

On rainy evenings we used to walk through the muddy factory town beside the Danube, Jelice, my blue-eyed girl - both tired from work.

But now you’re a fighter in the brigade of the Slavonians, my factory girl, the apple of my heart, whom I met on the slope of the mountain after many years. You used to be a child of the suburbs, the daughter of a fisherman.

Our meeting would be brief: a warm handshake.

Your mother?

     - in the camp.

Your house?

     - devastated.

Your fields?

     - unploughed weeds.

But the column of soldiers is moving on now. Again the brief grip of the hand, the regard in her blue eyes, lit up with joy. The warm trembling voice and sweet smile, like a fragrant, blossoming rose.

Jelice, my blue-eyed apple girl, my partisan rose with the wild hair, my fragrant quince in the blushing dawn, in pearls of dew.

My small hero.

Long ago you already entered the mountain peaks and I am still, for a time, down on the plains.

Through the forest glades and dewy shrubs I have a vision that the sun sent me your fragrant and dancing hair in greetings of golden ribbons.

A PARTISAN LETTER  

                by  

         Josip Cazi 

                        

Fireflies! In the bruised dawn the warm gold invigorates them. We are resting in the high mountains beside the forest. In the top of the beech tree, whose pearl overflows, a rooster is crowing at dawn and a blackbird plays on its silken flute.

The entire night we were in a hellish shootout and now we are in a meadow full of flowers. We are celebrating gladly by the woods and up the hill is heard the song of our comrades.

Hey, what are you singing about? About yearning, that like a barque sails through the soul. Oh, when I have a voice and when I sing the blood of my heart would pour into our song.

But you know how much I think about you, while my exertions mock me in the whistling shots and spattering shells, and death that follows them swiftly. My dear darling, this moment I am embracing you. This moment I care for you like a loving parent.

Oh, how I would love in any way to come to you, to lay your gentle head on my chest and shower you with kisses. After so many days and nights, my desire, my early dawn, my most beautiful flower among flowers!

Here in the sky the morning star is fading with all its grains of dazzling gold. Its name is dear to you, and so you are to me.

And the bird from our nest, our small son, our little treasure?

I heard that for fourteen nights and days you endured devastation while the mountains of Slavonia burned, with our toddler in a sling in your arms. The poor little thing, our white dove. Slavonia was a blazing sea. The villages were on fire, the bushes choked. Ancient forests – our mountain jewel and the shield of our land – all were swallowed in a fiery hell.

Oh, how you are, my sufferers? It was severe for you. Did the little one cry a lot? Where are you now? – for black sorrow gnaws at me. Over and over again I hope that I will meet you somewhere in some village, some refuge or on some Slavonian road. Your eyes are looking for me. My heart expects you.

Daddy! – some little orphan piped up yesterday as, all happy, he twitched my moustache. The grandmother scolded him bitterly but, to me, while I was caressing the golden strands on the child’s head, brimming tears trembled in my eyes – and I saw in my thoughts your two dear faces.

THE KISS

    by Josip Cazi  1941

At the first sight of our free homeland I sunk my head into the juniper bushes.

The morning smoked and froze. It expanded over the bay and the partisans held their rifles cocked in their arms behind a rocky outcrop.

Oh, free woods! Oh, free mountains! My native land!

I am kissing you, naked cliffs, full of zeal and joy like the son returning home to his old mother.

 

Hey! To the forest where the timid deer runs,

Where he smells the firs and the green pines.

To the hills where all wounds are healed,

Buds like flowers, in sunny freedom.

Hey! When would you come to me, my comrades, and rejoice, and with bowed head kiss the free cliffs over our bay.