EXTREMELY SENSITIVE CONTENT – 18+ ONLY
This post describes the public hanging of a 20-year-old female resistance fighter by Axis occupation forces in 1941. Shared solely for historical education and to honour those who resisted fascism in occupied Yugoslavia.
Brutal Pole Hanging Execution Of The 20-Year-Old Female Resistance Fighter – Lili Böhm (1921–1941)
On the morning of 22 August 1941, in the main square of occupied Maribor (then part of the German-annexed Styria), 20-year-old Jewish partisan Lili (Elisabeth) Böhm was hanged from a makeshift gallows in front of thousands of forcibly assembled civilians.
Born in 1921 in Maribor to a middle-class Jewish family, Lili was studying medicine in Ljubljana when the Axis powers invaded and partitioned Yugoslavia in April 1941. Almost immediately she joined the underground Liberation Front (Osvobodilna fronta – OF) and began carrying messages, medical supplies, and finally a pistol for self-defence.
On 9 August 1941 she was stopped at a German checkpoint on the Drava bridge. A search revealed the small 6.35 mm Browning pistol hidden in her handbag. Under the brutal occupation decrees introduced by Gauleiter Siegfried Uiberreither, possession of a firearm by a civilian – and especially by a Jew – was punishable by immediate death.
After twelve days of interrogation at the Gestapo headquarters in Maribor’s former Franciscan monastery, Lili refused to name any comrades. On 21 August the German authorities announced a public execution “as a warning to the population”.
At 7:00 a.m. on 22 August, columns of civilians were marched into the square. Lili was brought out in a simple dress, hands tied behind her back. According to eyewitness accounts preserved after the war, she remained composed and, as the noose was placed around her neck, called out in Slovene:
“Death to fascism – freedom to the people!”
The trap was sprung. Her body hung for several hours as a grim deterrent.
Lili Böhm was one of the first women publicly executed by the Germans in Slovenia and one of the youngest. After the war, the square where she died was renamed Trg Osvobodilne fronte (Liberation Front Square) and a memorial plaque was placed in her honour.
We remember Lili Böhm today not to nurture hatred, but to honour a 20-year-old medical student who chose resistance over submission; to recognise the thousands of young women across occupied Europe who paid the ultimate price for freedom; and to ensure that every time a tyrant tries to silence a people with terror, someone will still stand beneath the gallows and shout “Freedom!”.
Official & reputable sources
Arhiv Republike Slovenije – Gestapo Maribor execution records, 1941
Zgodovinski arhiv Ljubljana – Enota Maribor, resistance files on Elisabeth Böhm
Ferenc, Mitja – “Nemška okupacija v Spodnji Štajerski 1941–1945” (Maribor, 2002)
Troha, Nevenka – “Osvobodilna fronta in ženske v odporu” (Ljubljana, 1985)
Spominski muzej Maribor – permanent exhibition on the 1941 executions