Ivan "Ivica" Vranetić ( he, איוואן ורנטיץ'; 1925/1926 – 3 February 2010) was a Yugoslav partisan of ethnic

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

n descent, whose aid to Jewish people during World War II resulted in his inclusion among the "

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...

" by

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

in 1970. For more than two decades, he was Chairman of the

organization.

Biography

Vranetić is believed to have been born in 1925 or 1926 in

Vrbas, Donji Vakuf Vrbas is a village in the municipality of Donji Vakuf, Bosnia and Herzegovina Bosnia and Herzegovina ( sh, / , ), abbreviated BiH () or B&H, sometimes called Bosnia–Herzegovina and often known informally as Bosnia, is a country at the ...

Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...

(present-day Bosnia & Herzegovina) and raised in

Topusko Topusko is a municipality in Sisak-Moslavina County, Croatia. Topusko is an underdeveloped municipality which is statistically classified as the First Category Area of Special State Concern by the Government of Croatia. Demographics The populati ...

(present-day

Republic of Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

). He grew up in a liberal, middle-class, Catholic household. Although his parents were not particularly religious, Vranetić said he was raised to love and respect others. Vranetić began helping Jewish refugees at the age of 17 even though his village largely supported the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

-linked

Ustaše The Ustaše (), also known by anglicised versions Ustasha or Ustashe, was a Croats, Croatian Fascism, fascist and ultranationalism, ultranationalist organization active, as one organization, between 1929 and 1945, formally known as the Ustaš ...

. His first attempt to help a Jewish doctor resulted in a beating by a Croatian soldier which caused Vranetić to lose hearing in his left ear. He went on to help many others find secure hiding places and to supply their needs. Among the refugees he assisted was Erna Montilio, whose husband had been murdered at the infamous

Jasenovac concentration camp Jasenovac () was a concentration camp, concentration and extermination camps, extermination camp established in the Jasenovac, Sisak-Moslavina County, village of the same name by the authorities of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) in I ...

. Erna, together with her mother, sister, and daughter, managed to escape to Dalmatia. They lived there in relative peace until mid-1943, when the Italians sent all the Jewish and Slovenian refugees there to

Rab concentration camp The Rab concentration camp ( it, Campo di concentramento per internati civili di Guerra – Arbe; hr, Koncentracijski logor Rab; sl, Koncentracijsko taborišče Rab) was one of several Italian concentration camps. It was established during World ...

in the Adriatic. In 1948, Erna and her daughter moved to Israel where she married and had two more children. But the marriage did not last. After the war, Vranetić continued to communicate with her and other refugees he had helped, eventually moving to Israel in 1963 and marrying Montilio. He was granted honorary Israeli citizenship by the government of Israel. In 1970, he received his "

" award from

for his work, becoming chairman of the Organization of Righteous Among the Nations in Israel in 1986, a position he held for more than twenty years. Widowed in the late 1990s, Vranetić was honored during a memorial ceremony at the Yad Vashem Hall of Remembrance in 2009 when he and six Jewish

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

survivors met

Pope Benedict XVI Pope Benedict XVI ( la, Benedictus XVI; it, Benedetto XVI; german: link=no, Benedikt XVI.; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger, , on 16 April 1927) is a retired prelate of the Catholic church who served as the head of the Church and the sovereign ...

Death

Ivan Vranetić died in Israel on 3 February 2010. Most sources gave his age as 84.''Boston Globe'' report on Vranetić's death
7 February 2010; accessed 8 September 2016.

References

External links

Pomegranate GuildTribute site
at

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Vranetic, Ivan 1920s births 2010 deaths People from Donji Vakuf Croatian Righteous Among the Nations Yugoslav Partisans members Yugoslav emigrants to Israel Israeli people of Croatian descent