Spomenik Stručica
The memorial takes its name from Stručica, the part of Rakovac where it stands, in the street named after Stanko Paunović Veljko. It was built in the early 1970s to a design by the architect Mirko Krstonošić. Its three curved concrete pillars stand for three men killed here during the breakout from the encirclement of Fruška Gora in August 1942:
Paunović was first buried here and later moved to the Memorial Cemetery in Sremska Mitrovica.
The information board at the memorial (in Serbian) calls this one of the most unequal battles of the Second World War: a few hundred partisans against 18,000 German soldiers and 6,000 Ustaše, Home Guards and Volksdeutsche, “40 to 1”. According to the board, the Fruška Gora detachment broke through the ring towards the Srem plain and the Bosut forests in the night of 27 to 28 August 1942, and the three men fell at Stručica while fighting their way across towards the Danube. The board gives the courier’s name as Wencel Franja Hunjadi; the plaque on his pillar reads “Zencel Hunjadi, courier Franja, 1942”. Commander Marković’s plaque reads “Commander Đorđe Marković Đilas, 1942”, and Paunović’s “People’s Hero Stanko Paunović Veljko, 1907–1942”.
Read the whole story on Rakovac in the Second World War.
Archaeological site · protected cultural property
Seven thousand years in one place: a Neolithic village, a Roman villa, a medieval Benedictine abbey that became a fortress, and today an excavation site on the edge of Rakovac.
From a legend of 1498 to today
A hunter’s vow, a scriptorium that copied Serbia’s medieval law code, a baroque golden age, destruction in 1943 and a slow rebirth.
1941–1945
Quarry workers who swore the partisan oath, raids on the quarry’s dynamite store, the great offensive of August 1942, and a village burned in 1943.
Rakovac
