On February 8th, 1943, Lepa Radić, 17 was hung by the Nazis. Young Lepa fought the Germans in her home country of Yugoslavia during World War II. She was caught shooting at German troops and ordered to be hung.
Prior to her execution, the Nazis offered Lepa an deal that would let her live.
In exchange for revealing the identities of her comrades in the resistance, she would be spared the gallows. She refused.
She said she was not a traitor and that her comrades will reveal themselves only when they avenged her death.
“Long live the Communist Party, and partisans! Fight, people, for your freedom! Do not surrender to the evildoers! I will be killed, but there are those who will avenge me,” she said. “I am not a traitor of my people. Those whom you are asking about will reveal themselves when they have succeeded in wiping out all you evildoers, to the last man.“
She was later awarded the “Order of the People’s Hero” award in 1951 for helping the Yugoslav people fight the Nazis.
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She and her family were arrested years earlier, but she and her sister escaped in 1941.