Monument to the Troop in Brezovica Forest
The monument to the troops in Brezovica Forest is a monument in Novo Selo Palanječkobei , a village near Sisak in Croatia . It was designed by the Yugoslav sculptor Želimir Janeš and unveiled on June 22, 1981 in memory of the Sisak People's Liberation Unit. It was the first armed anti-fascist partisan group in occupied Yugoslavia and was founded on June 22, 1941 in the Brezovica forest under an elm tree .
monument
As early as 1959, a small memorial was erected and an elm was planted at the supposedly exact place where the unit was founded. After the fall of the elm in the late 1970s, calls for a more permanent memorial were loud. The monument by Janeš, completed in 1981, is made of reinforced concrete and depicts a stylized elm tree. Inside the monument there was a large bronze fist and eleven fist-shaped plates with the names of the fighters of the Sisak liberation unit. These bronze elements were stolen in the course of the Yugoslav wars. Inside there was also an inscription from a poem by Jure Kaštelan :
"We come from the truth of people, we live for the truth of people."
In front of the memorial there is also a small concrete stele on which the twelve names of the founders of the unit are written down. There is also a flat stone on which there is a mosaic with the plan of the area.
Stele with the names of the founders
Mosaic with site plan
Bronze sculpture uprising
Since 1991 the bronze sculpture Uprising by the Yugoslav artist Frano Kršinić from 1955 has been on the site. It was originally located in the city center of Sisak and in 1991 it was brought to the memorial. It represents three people, the foremost with a flag.
Between 2008 and 2014 the bronze was repeatedly damaged and parts of it were cut off. In May 2014, the remaining elements were finally smashed into several pieces and stolen entirely. A few months later, the police were able to find the fragments. A restoration is planned, but has not yet been carried out (as of 2016).
Web links
- Memorial to the Troop in Brezovica Forest in the Spomenik Database