Abstract: This study addresses a topic that has thus far received insufficient scholarly attention: the female partisans from the territory of the Independent State of Croatia (NDH) who perished during the war. According to the partially revised census "Victims of the War 1941 - 1945" from 1964, 6,811 women who died in the partisan movement came from the territory of the NDH, which accounted for 7.63% of its losses. The aim of the paper is to show that women in the Partisan movement came from all parts of the NDH, that among them there were members of all nations, but their suffering was not equal. Most of the perished female partisans came from four regions, and Serbian women accounted for four fifths of the losses suffered by women.

Keywords: Yugoslavia, NDH, partisans/partisan movement, population, losses/suffering, regions, Serbian women, Croatian women, Muslim women

Summary: The study discusses a topic that has received insufficient scholarly attention thus far, namely the perished female partisans from NDH territory, with the purpose of filling in the gaps and correcting the shortcomings in current historical knowledge. According to the partially revised List "Victims of the War 1941 - 1945" from 1964, 89,221 members of the Partisan movement were killed, including 6,811 women. Women have been involved in the partisan movement in the NDH's territory since its founding. They did crucial tasks in the rear to ensure the movement's survival, but they also served in combat groups. Their suffering was continuous, and half of them perished in 1943. Partisan women who died came from all over the NDH, with 61.41% coming from four regions: Bosanska krajina, Banija, Lika, and Kordun, which were home to a fifth of the overall population. They consistently made up the majority of female partisan casualties throughout the war. Among the perished partisans, women were most represented in Kordun, where they accounted for 18.20% of the losses. In contrast, their lowest share was recorded among the partisans from Herzegovina, where they comprised 3.77% of the casualties. The partisan movement was successful in bringing together people of all ethnicities in NDH territory, but their suffering was not equal. Serbian women accounted for 80.77% of the female partisan casualties, making them 2.52 times more represented in the movement’s female losses than their proportion in the overall NDH population. Croatian women (14.34%) and Muslim women (2.44%) participated in female partisan losses at rates 3.32 and 5.31 times lower than their demographic representation, respectively. Female partisans of Serbian nationality were the only victims in the four regions where most of the movement's perished women came from.