A treasured family story for you: during the fascist occupation of BiH in the 1940s, my great-aunt survived a Chetnik massacre in East Bosnia by playing dead, digging herself out of a mass grave, sneaking through the woods for days, then joining up w/ a Partisan resistance cell.
My great-uncle - on my Father’s side - managed to escape recruitment by NDH Home Guard by sneaking out of town on the back of logging truck. His mother’s parting words were “remain honorable” which, upon also joining the Partisans, he interpreted to mean don’t loot dead bodies.
So, when he managed to come upon and kill an Italian officer in the woods a while later, all he took was his pistol, leaving his jewelry, boots etc. That was one of the last stories he told me before he passed away a few yrs back. Still had the weapon too.
My grandmother was initially running various safe houses for Partisan operatives in occupied Sarajevo. Eventually she fled the city and became a nurse in one of the units in Central Bosnia. She forced her commanding officer to issue her a rifle & serve on the frontline.
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