Saša Božović ( sr-Cyrl, Саша Божовић; 4 August 1912 – 10 December 1995) was a doctor, writer and participant in the

antifascist Anti-fascism is a political movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II, where the Axis powers were ...

resistance of the

Yugoslav Partisans The Yugoslav Partisans,Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Slovene: , or the National Liberation Army, sh-Latn-Cyrl, Narodnooslobodilačka vojska (NOV), Народноослободилачка војска (НОВ); mk, Народноослобод� ...

during

World War II in Yugoslavia World War II in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia began on 6 April 1941, when the country was swiftly conquered by Axis forces and partitioned between Germany, Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria and their client regimes. Shortly after Germany attacked the US ...

Education

She graduated from the

University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine The Belgrade Faculty of Medicine ( sr, Медицински факултет Универзитета у Београду/''Medicinski fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu'') is a constituent institution of the University of Belgrade, which offers a wi ...

in 1937.

Second World War

After the April 1941 German bombing of Belgrade in Operation Retribution she left the city while pregnant and moved to

Podgorica Podgorica (Cyrillic: Подгорица, ; lit. 'under the hill') is the capital and largest city of Montenegro. The city was formerly known as Titograd (Cyrillic: Титоград, ) between 1946 and 1992—in the period that Montenegro form ...

in modern-day

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

. Since her husband was one of the main organizers of the 1941 Uprising in Montenegro, Italian forces imprisoned her and subsequently sent her to a concentration camp in the Albanian Kingdom. She was later sent to a hospital in

Tirana Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea ...

where she gave a birth to her daughter Dolores, named after

Dolores Ibárruri Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (; 9 December 189512 November 1989), also known as (English: "the Passionflower"), was a Spanish Republican politician of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 and a communist known for her slogan ''¡No Pasará ...

, republican heroine of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

. She was liberated in exchange for Italian soldiers taken hostage by Partisan forces. Saša was working as an organizer of the Partisan war hospital. Her daughter Dolores, called "Little Partisan" by Sava Kovačević, died from consequences of low temperature, hunger and exhaustion on 7 March 1943 during the

Battle of the Neretva Case White (german: Fall Weiss), also known as the Fourth Enemy Offensive ( sh, Četvrta neprijateljska ofenziva/ofanziva), was a combined Axis strategic offensive launched against the Yugoslav Partisans throughout occupied Yugoslavia during ...

. Her grave was in a village that after the war in 1953 ended up below the artificial Jablanica lake. After the Belgrade Offensive she became a military delegate at the Yugoslav Red Cross and in 1944 she became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. She was awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Partisans of 1941.

Post-war

After the war she had two sons and one daughter. In 1976, on Saša's birthday, she her first granddaughter was born and the parents insisted that the child be called Dolores. Together with Darko Šilović she co-authored ''Tebi moja Dolores'' (''For you, my Dolores''), a work which was republished seven times and was the most read book in the

Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, commonly referred to as SFR Yugoslavia or simply as Yugoslavia, was a country in Central and Southeast Europe. It emerged in 1945, following World War II, and lasted until 1992, with the breakup of Yu ...

in 1980.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bozovic, Sasa Women in the Yugoslav Partisans Yugoslav Partisans members University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine alumni 1912 births 1995 deaths