As the second world war waged on fighting was brutal at times along the eastern front the nazis had taken a huge amount of land across europe and because of this many countries found themselves being occupied by the nazis this meant that they were ruled over by them subject to a police state and also many were oppressed the oppression was coupled with the horrific persecution of minorities and over time mass deportations of those considered undesirable were sent to concentration camps before they were executed within the gas chambers there were pockets of resistance across europe who defied their occupiers and fought for their freedom one group was the partisans who across different countries fought for supremacy and in particular there was one seventeen-year-old girl who fought with them lepa radic was an incredibly brave young lady however she was captured by the nazis and was executed at the hands of them regardless of the fact she was just a teenager join us today as we look at the brutal execution of leper radicch the teenage girl executed by the nazis remember to support our channel please make sure to subscribe leopardic was born on the 19th of december 1925.

her family were bosnian serbs and she was raised in a small village near basanska gradiska which today is a small town in the northwestern region of modern day bosnia and herzegovina her family were a hard-working group and she had humble beginnings but her family were communist her uncle in particular had strong links to communism as he was involved in the workers movement and leopard was heavily influenced by those around her she attended elementary school and went to the women’s school of crafts in nearby byzanska krupa as a student she was known for her hard work and conscientious attitude within lessons and she had a particular interest in reading leper was reading at a higher level than the rest of her peers and began to at a young age delve into political ideas that her family had been involved in and discussed at the age of 15 leper addicts joined the league of communist youth of yugoslavia the skoj and also the communist party of yugoslavia this was in 1941 and despite being a teenager she was very politically aware at this time the second world war had been raging on for a couple of years and much territory had been seeded and gained by the nazis it was looking likely that hitler’s eyes would wander east towards the balkan states as he wished to attack the soviet union and head towards moscow hitler did order this as he ordered the vermax in the military to embark upon operation barbarossa and the nazis invaded many of the balkan states hitler’s plan for operation barbarossa was the biggest military operation in history at the time however within yugoslavia the government forced him to change his plans as the nazis came into power in the 1930s the kingdom of yugoslavia tried to stay neutral and shared intelligence with britain however on the 25th of march 1941 it signed a defensive agreement known as the tripartite pact this initially was an agreement signed between germany italy and japan however what this agreement did was basically ally yugoslavia with the axis powers and the nazis the yugoslavian military two days later then staged a coup helped by the british to instill the 17-year-old king peter ii as the head of the government that many believed would try to stay out of the war this made yugoslavia more nationalistic but hitler issued the fuhrer directive 25 which he deemed the new government hostile and for this he ordered the german army to invade this began on the 6th of april 1941 and ended 11 days later with the surrender of yugoslavia the nazis annexed much of the territory and they made croatia and bosnia herzegovina into the independent state of croatia and this involved leparanch’s town the eustachia ruled over this independent nation with brutality and terror and they were basically an oppressive puppet organization led by ante pavelich who carried out horrific acts of persecution and genocide across the balkans the eustachia aimed to create an ethnically pure croatia and saw serbs living in their territory as the biggest issue they said that one-third of all serbs would be killed one-third would be expelled and one third would be forced to convert to catholicism they were truly horrific and acts of pure cold-blooded murder exist from the time including one near to leper raleigh’s hometown where a young ethnic serb was beheaded by eustachia soldiers using a saw their laws also echoed the race laws of the nazis that saw so much death and devastation during the holocaust the nazi invasion of yugoslavia according to german propaganda was a success however they failed to take control of the mountainous regions as the locals knew the areas too well this failure allowed two resistance movements the partisans and the technics to emerge the two groups despite opposing the nazi rule were very different some techniques defied the nazis however others were worried about the spread of communism within yugoslavia the czechs were more hesitant to carry out acts of resistance as for every piece of resistance against the germans the germans would carry out horrific reprisals massacring thousands of civilians the techniques wished to wait for an allied invasion to free them of the nazis but being cautious this brought them into conflict with the partisans who wished for immediate action to rid themselves of nazi occupation the radice family were rather dissident to the new government and leper’s father and her two uncles joined the partisans in july 1941 for this they were then arrested in november 1941 by the ustasha however a few weeks after being kept in prison the radice family along with lepa were freed by the partisans after her freedom leper along with her sister dara began to be more involved in the partisan activities they actively took part in the movement to fight the axis powers and leper took up arms joining the seventh partisan company of the second krajiski detachment she first served as a nurse however was seen as a useful tool in connecting with the youth in the partizan movement and she began to recruit younger people into the group she also took place in military operations and in one led a group of young partisans to harvest grain close to where the german army were camped out in january 1943 along with some techniques the nazis launched case white an operation against the partisans this operation devastated and almost destroyed the resistance movement during the battle of nerevar lepa radic was responsible for transporting the wounded soldiers to a shelter and hospital in gramech it was key that leper tried to rescue as many soldiers as possible as partisan leader tito decreed never to leave the wounded on the battlefield as the axis would simply execute them so leopard’s work was vital for the partisans she worked hard on evacuating and treating injured partisans however in february 1943 whilst the resistance was fighting against the 7th ss volunteer mountain division prince eugene lepper was captured by the german detachment she had been attempting to save 100 women and children from the area and was captured helping however leper addicts refused to go down without a fight facing the ss division she fought the enemy shooting at the nazi soldiers unloading all of her ammunition from her rifle onto the enemy however she simply did not have enough and was captured by the ss after she was caught she was imprisoned by the germans and in an attempt to find out information that would help topple the partisans leper radice was kept in isolation and tortured she stood firm and despite torture the nazis were unable to break her and from this the nazis deemed her nothing but a partisan enemy who had fired upon their own soldiers and because of this she was sentenced to death in bazanska krupa on the 8th of february 1943 leperalic was led out from her prison by the german soldiers to her place of execution gallows had been hastily constructed consisting of what appears to be a piece of rope tied to a tree and a box underneath it leparous was led to the structure and was helped up and a noose was placed around her neck as this happened she screamed out to the crowd long live the communist party and partisans fight people for your freedom do not surrender to the evildoers i will be killed but there are those who will avenge me the nazi commander leading the execution then gave leparanich one final offer to spare her life she was offered to give over the names of partisans for her life however she stated i am not a traitor of my people those whom you are asking about will reveal themselves when they have succeeded in wiping out all you evildoers to the last man with this the box was then kicked out and leparch was executed hanging in front of a small crowd who had gathered she was only seventeen years old on the report written by the nazis of lepirati’s execution it read the bandit girls hanging in posanska krupa has shown unprecedented defiance her spirit encapsulated the partisan movement and after the war the yugoslavian communist party led by tito recognised leper for her bravery awarding her the order of the people’s hero is a girl who stood up to the tyranny of one of history’s most evil regimes however at the heart of this was a young teenage girl who took up arms against hitler’s third reich while she was brutally executed she was only 17 and today she is remembered as a figure of inspiration in the face of tyranny once again thanks for watching to support our channel please make sure to subscribe and once again thank you so much for watching