Women’s History Month — remembering their role in WWII

The execution of Lepa Radic 1943

Scores of women served on the front lines during WWll. I was reminded of that truth when I recently came across this photograph of the execution of young Lepa Racic by the Nazis in 1943. She served with the Yugoslavian resistance and volunteered to transport wounded fighters from the battlefield. Lepa was captured by the Nazis as she fired at them in an attempt to protect a group of injured partisans who were vulnerable to being taken by the advancing German troops.

Lepa was 17 years old when she was executed. She grew up in a small village in what is now Bosnia and Herzegovina. During the war, she served alongside her father and her uncles. The stories of Lepa’s bravery made her a legend and her fame has grown in the years since the war.

As her captors tied the noose around her neck, they offered her a way off the gallows by revealing her comrades and the identity of their leaders. Lepa responded that she was not a traitor to her comrades and that they would reveal their identities when they avenged her death. Her fighting spirit emboldened those who fought beside her.

I was struck when I learned that Lepa was the same age as my father. It was young women and men around the world who put themselves in harm’s way to fight the forces of facism, hate, and racism during World War II. They truly saved the world and entrusted it to us.

At the very least, we owe it to them to continue the fight against the evils that can all to easily reassert themselves and overwhelm all that we hold dear.

Young Lepa Radic