Partisan Memorial & Cemetery
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A Yugoslav-era memorial monument (‘Spomenik’) park and cemetery in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina. It’s been repeatedly vandalized, and even though there is now a bit more security (with CCTV cameras in place) it is still in a rather sorry state and looks totally abandoned. There are also safety issues to be borne in mind when planning a visit to this site.
More background info: Mostar was a particularly strong base for the partisans’ resistance against the Axis powers of Germany, Italy and especially the Ustaše of the newly created “Independent State of Croatia” (a puppet state of Nazi Germany) who occupied Mostar in July 1941. During WWII a sizeable proportion of the local population joined the partisans’ resistance and sabotage actions against the occupiers. Retaliation was often brutal, with ca. 1000 executed civilians.
Mostar was finally liberated by a partisan corps in July 1945 in “Operation Mostar”. Over 500 partisans were killed in the battles.
The monument complex was conceived comparatively early on, since Mostar was regarded as such an important place of anti-fascist communist resistance, one that showed unity across ethnic and religious divides, hence very much in line with the united state ideal of Tito’s Yugoslavia.
Construction of the “Spomenik” park and cemetery began in 1960, and the grand opening ceremony was held in September 1965.
Some 800 fallen fighters are actually interred here in an ossuary and small gravestones are placed around the main section of the memorial spelling out the names of the fallen. Amongst those gravestones are also a number of merely symbolic ones, for fallen partisans who are buried elsewhere.
The architect who designed this memorial was none other than the legendary Bogdan Bogdanović who also designed the famous Flower memorial at Jasenovac.
During the Bosnian war the memorial park became a target for considerable vandalism, looting and destruction, as the different ethnic groups engaged in conflict – and the memorial cemetery symbolized the ethnic unity of Yugoslavia that was suddenly no longer valid and in fact despised by the warring parties.
This continued after war as well, and repairs were undone by repeated and ongoing vandalism. In the 2000s the complex was substantially restored, but in 2022 the 700 engraved stone gravestone markers were smashed up yet again by groups of vandals. The whole complex remains highly endangered.
For this website’s purposes this brief overview shall have to suffice. Those who want to know more, can, as usual with Yugoslav-era monuments, find a wealth of detailed information in the Mostar site’s entry in the “Spomenik Database” (external link – opens in a new tab).
NOTE that this entry comes with a security warning, because of the contested nature of the memorial. In 2017 an international student group visiting the place came under attack by “20 masked assailants”. The Spomenik Database hence advises not to visit the memorial park alone as a foreigner, but ideally with a Bosnian guide who is familiar with the local situation. Whether this is still valid now that there are security cameras at the site, I cannot say for certain. But better be safe than sorry. When I was there I was with a private guide (see below), although he did not accompany me into the complex but waited by the entrance.
What there is to see: not all that much … From the entrance by a drab car park you proceed along one of the approach paths that lead past some concrete structures, including what looks like a circular hollow – maybe that was once a pond, but I don’t know for sure.
Eventually, further up the hillside, you come to the main part of the memorial, a five-tier terraced space with an ornamental wall at the back. This is dominated by a ensemble of circular and hexagonal ornamental shapes, and in front of it stands a circular concrete spiral that once will have held an “eternal flame” (long extinguished). The side walls have more of the circular ornaments.
Through a couple of archways you can get to the top tier and from here you can see the small (symbolic) gravestones for the fallen partisans. Most of them have been smashed up by vandals, though, only a few were still in one piece. It’s a sorry sight.
However, the graffiti that my guide (see below) warned me about before I went in (without him), including possibly swastikas and other such unsavoury things, were nowhere in evidence when I was there. I guess they must have been removed in one of the preservation efforts of recent years.
There is also a tall pole with CCTV security cameras at the top, presumably to deter further vandalism. It seems to have worked, if only partially.
Overall the place feels forlorn, not so much forgotten as detested. It reminded me of the Partisan Martyrs Cemetery in Pristina, Kosovo, which is similarly unloved and vandalized.
So these days the Mostar partisan memorial Spomenik and cemetery is but a minor dark site to visit, hardly a must-see.
Location: on a hillside in the western part of Mostar; the entrance is on Kralja Petra Krešimira IV, just west of the corner with Nabadiskupa Čule.
Google Maps locator: [43.3412, 17.7963]
Access and costs: a bit out of the centre; but not too hard to find; freely accessible.
Details: in theory you could walk all the way to the memorial complex from the Old Town city centre of Mostar, which would take about half an hour. The complex is nominally freely accessible at all times (though you wouldn’t want to be there after dark!).
But given the uncertain security situation at this site, it is better to come with a Bosnian guide who’s aware of the current situation (as advised by the Spomenik Database’s entry for this place – see above).
When I visited the site it was as part of a longer multi-day private tour with a driver-guide organized by the Sarajevo-based operator Funky Tours (see their sponsored page here).
Time required: not long; I was there for about 20 minutes.
Combinations with other dark destinations: see under Mostar.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: see under Mostar.
