Roza Papo
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Roza Papo (1914–1984) was a Bosnian physician and general of the Yugoslav People's Army. She was the first woman to rise to the rank of general on the Balkan Peninsula.
Roza Papo was born on 6 February 1914 into a Sephardi Jewish family in Sarajevo. Her mother, Mirjama Papo (born Abinun), was the daughter of a rabbi from Gračanica.[1]
Roza Papo studied at the Faculty of Medicine, University of Zagreb in Croatia and worked as physician in Sarajevo, Begov Han and Olovo before the outbreak of the Second World War.[2]
War service
Following the invasion of Yugoslavia by Nazi Germany in 1941, Papo made contact with the Yugoslav Partisans in Ozren and started aiding them.[2] Jews throughout Europe joined resistance movements in an attempt to survive, but Papo's decision was also motivated by patriotism.[3] Papo officially joined the Partisans in December 1941. The following year, she also became a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia.[2] During the war, she contracted typhus, and during a battle in Ozren in 1942, she was slightly wounded in the face by an airplane bomb.
As an officer, Papo served directly under Josip Broz Tito, the leader of the Yugoslav resistance. She led the recruitment system and commanded the network of the different Partisan field hospitals.[3] Not wishing to be seen as a coward, she refused to take shelter during an air raid in 1942 and nearly lost an eye.[4] She reached the rank of captain in 1943 and was a major by 1945.[4]