Nada Dimić

Who was Nada Dimić?

Nada Dimić was a Yugoslav communist who died in World War II and was proclaimed a People's Hero of Yugoslavia.

Nada Dimić was born in Divoselo near Gospić, Croatia to an ethnic Serb family. She finished four grades of elementary school in Gospić, and then moved to Zemun for another four grades of gymnasium and one year of the economics academy. In 1938 she joined the Communist Youth, and in 1940 the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.

When Yugoslavia was invaded during World War II, in June 1941 she joined the 1st Sisak Partisan Detachment, the first Partisan unit in Croatia. The same year, the Ustasha police arrested her in Sisak, but as they transferred her to the prison in Zagreb, she swallowed poison in order to avoid interrogation. It did not kill her, but she was soon rescued by the Zagreb cell of the Party, and transferred to the Partisan-controlled areas of Kordun.

When she recovered from the poisoning, she went to Karlovac where she worked as an undercover agent for the Partisans. She was eventually caught by the Italians who surrendered her to the Ustaša police on December 3, 1941, which then tortured her. She refused to give them any information, and was sent to the Stara Gradiška concentration camp in February 1942. She was murdered there a month later, aged 18.