Vojin Vojinović

National Hero Aleksandar Vojinović Vojin was born in 1922 in Mirnica, a village near Kuršumlija, into a peasant family. He graduated from the Secondary Agricultural School in Valjevo, and became a member of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ) and the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ) in 1941. He was one of the organizers of the uprising in Toplica, a participant in the war from 1941, and the executor of the action at the “Park” Hotel in Niš (then the Officers’ Club), at that time one of the main gathering places of German officers in the early days of the occupation.

He joined the Toplica National Liberation Partisan Detachment from the first days of the uprising. He served both as a fighter and commander, and ended the war with the rank of Major in the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA). He spent most of his working life serving in various positions within the JNA and later served as ambassador of the SFR Yugoslavia in several countries. He was also engaged in literary work and authored seven novels and chronicles (“Wolf Times”, “The Exile”, “Hotel Park”…). His literary and military works were translated into several foreign languages (Russian, Ukrainian, German, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenian, and Macedonian). Aleksandar Vojinović was proclaimed a National Hero on October 9, 1953.

Lieutenant General Aleksandar Vojinović Vojin died in Belgrade on February 7, 1999.

In memory of the action in Niš, the Association of Fighters of the National Liberation War in Niš placed a memorial plaque on the “Park” Hotel on July 21, 1948, with the following inscription:

“One of the first partisans of our region, by order of his Party and people, threw a bomb into the middle of this building in August 1941, killing thirty German officers and wounding several others.

Clearing his path, he threw another bomb at the fascist officers and soldiers, fired several shots from his pistol, and managed to escape through 7th July Street, Orlovića Pavla Street, and then Jeronimova Street, where he reported the successful completion of the mission.”

As can be seen from the text, the name of the man who carried out the action was not mentioned. They say that was how things were done at the time. What mattered was that the mission entrusted by the Party and the people had been accomplished.