1892–1943
✕ Killed in action
A Bosnian politician who embodied a multi-ethnic resistance coalition
When Ustaša leader Ljubomir Kvaternik came to Cazin in the summer of 1941 seeking his support, Pozderac refused even to grant him a meeting.
Nurija Pozderac was a Bosnian Muslim teacher turned politician from the Cazin region who refused the Ustaša regime's demand to collaborate and stood against its persecution of Serbs and Jews. With his wife Devleta he rescued dozens of Jewish refugees, and as a vice president of AVNOJ elected in 1942 he embodied the partisan movement's multi-ethnic character.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1910s–1930sTeacher in the Cazin region
- 1935Deputy in the Parliament of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
- 1941Rejected Ustaša collaboration and joined the National Liberation Movement
- 1942President of the Cazin National Liberation Committee
- 1942Vice president of the AVNOJ Executive Board
- 1943Participant in the Battles of Neretva and Sutjeska
- 1944Posthumously awarded the Order of the People’s Liberation
Related historical events
Rescuing Jews and Serbs
After Yugoslavia was partitioned in April 1941 and the puppet Independent State of Croatia (Nezavisna Država Hrvatska) was created, the Ustaša set about the mass killing and expulsion of Jews, Serbs and Roma. When the persecution of Jews in Bihać began that June, most were taken to the camp at Bukovača near Bosanski Petrovac, but many chose to flee thirty kilometres to Cazin, pinning their hopes on Pozderac. Months earlier he had driven away a group of Ustaša planning to murder local Serbs, and his protection was widely trusted.
With his wife Devleta, Pozderac sheltered dozens of Jewish refugees in his own home, giving them food and cover. His refusal even to meet the Bihać Ustaša leader Ljubomir Kvaternik, who came to Cazin seeking his support, was itself an act of rescue. Among the people the Pozderacs saved were Moni Atjas, Izidor Levi and Klarica Levi, who decades later each submitted testimony to the Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.
After Pozderac was mortally wounded in the Battle of Sutjeska in June 1943, the Ustaša arrested Devleta, who had remained in Cazin, and sent her to camps at Bosanski Novi and Gradiška. She was freed through the intervention of Josip Broz Tito, who exchanged a captured German officer for her. In 2012 Yad Vashem posthumously named Pozderac and Devleta Righteous Among the Nations, and in 2013 their eldest daughter Sadeta Buljubašić received the medal on their behalf.