Park in Sarajevo to be named after heroine Jelena Vitas

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - Member of the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH Damir Arnaut welcomes the decision of the Sarajevo Canton Assembly to support his initiative to name a park in the Sarajevo municipality of Centar after Jelena Vitas, a Sarajevo heroine who was killed in Jasenovac. 

Jelena Vitas was active in the National Liberation Movement from the beginning of the occupation of Sarajevo in 1941. The Ustaše arrested her in 1942 and tortured and interrogated her at the headquarters of the Ustaše Surveillance Service (UNS). Despite the most terrible torture, she did not betray the members of the NOP, thereby saving many lives. In mid-1943, she was transferred to Jasenovac, where she was executed at the end of 1944. Due to her merits in the anti-fascist struggle, a kindergarten in La Benevolencija Street (now the headquarters of JU Djeca Sarajeva) was previously named after Jelena Vitas, as was the street where her family home was located (now Tahtali sokak).

In February, Arnaut submitted a parliamentary initiative to name the park opposite the Bosnian Cultural Center after Jelena Vitas, as the UNS headquarters was located in Ćemaluša Street in the building overlooking this park. Jelena Vitas was held in the basement and attic spaces, and interrogated in the rooms on the upper floors, from where the park is visible. This is the first adopted initiative submitted in the current convocation of the Parliamentary Assembly of BiH, and the first initiative adopted by a lower level of government based on a proposal from the state parliament.

Arnaut's initiative was previously supported by the citizens' assembly of the Trg Oslobođenja Centar Local Community, the Centar Municipal Council, and the relevant commissions of that council and the KS Assembly, and with today's decision, the park has officially been named after Jelena Vitas. In addition to the fact that the name of this park will remind numerous future generations of Sarajevo's heroic past, Arnaut believes that this will be the most appropriate way to mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Jelena Vitas, who was born on December 5, 1919, in Sarajevo.

Arnaut called on his colleagues in the state parliament to launch similar initiatives for naming streets, squares, parks, and other landmarks after anti-fascist heroes in their cities, following the example that Sarajevo has set today.