Brussels – The Resistance movements that fought against Nazi-Fascist occupation and led to the liberation of several European countries 80 years ago are a cornerstone of collective national and European memory. Yet, this vital history risks fading into obscurity, in particular the cross-border networks of partisans who fought beyond national borders.
“Knowledge of the partisan struggle is often superficial, if not entirely absent. It’s either uncritically glorified or demonised—in short, highly selective, designed to serve particular interests,” warns Nicolas Moll, coordinator of Wer ist Walter? (Who is Walter?, in German), a project spanning four European countries. “This initiative is not only about deepening historical understanding, but also about reflecting on how this memory is being shaped today.”
A cross-border project
The Wer ist Walter? project was initiated by German historian Moll, co-founder of the Crossborder Factory think tank, alongside Elma Hašimbegović, Director of the Museum of History of Bosnia and Herzegovina (the former Museum of the Revolution in Sarajevo). “We asked ourselves what role the memory of Resistance to Nazi-fascism during the Second World War plays today, and what lessons it can still offer,” Moll explains.
Originally centred on the post-Yugoslav States—”where the anti-fascist legacy presents a challenge” — the project’s scope has broadened. “The same questions resonate in other countries as well, the goal is to examine history and memory from a European perspective,” he adds. This expansion led Wer ist Walter? project to include France, Germany, Croatia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a particular focus on the territories of the former Yugoslavia. When we consider European history, we often think of Central and Western Europe, leaving South-Eastern Europe as an almost forgotten area. “With this project, we aimed to underscore the significance of Yugoslav memory within the wider European historical context,” the German historian underlines.
But who exactly was Walter? “It was the nom de guerre of Vladimir Perić, a key figure in the underground anti-fascist Resistance in occupied Sarajevo,” Bosnian historian Hašimbegović explains. Perić quickly became a legend of the Yugoslav Resistance following his death on the night of 5–6 April 1945, just hours before partisan units entered Sarajevo. Posthumously awarded the national hero medal in 1953, his legacy reached its zenith in 1972 with the release of the movie Valter brani Sarajevo (Walter Defends Sarajevo).
It was a recurring line from this film that inspired Moll and Hašimbegović’s project. In the film, German generals repeatedly ask, “Who is Walter?” because of his false identity. Only at the end, gazing down on Sarajevo from above, one officer finally says, “See the city? That’s Walter.” “The question mark is crucial to us,” Moll emphasises. “Today, Resistance is not a widely discussed topic in European societies, so we wanted to focus on what we can learn from the ‘Walters’ in every place.”
Developed between 2022 and 2024, the Wer ist Walter? project has successfully achieved three major objectives: a scientific publication, an exhibition at the Sarajevo Museum, and a digital platform showcasing 100 stories of Resistance. As Moll acknowledges, while “it may seem somewhat arbitrary” to focus on just four countries, “one of the most crucial elements of our research is its transnational scope, even though there was no unified European Resistance.”
A clear example is the research into “the border regions between Italy and Yugoslavia, and the involvement of Yugoslav partisans in the liberation struggle in northern Italy,” as outlined in the study of Camp No. 43 in Piedmont (North-Western Italy) by Alfredo Sasso, a researcher at the University of Florence.
National history, European memory
The risk of losing the collective memory of Resistance, both national and transnational, is a challenge faced by all European countries, albeit for reasons that vary according to the historical contexts of the second half of the 20th century.
Considering South-Eastern Europe, it was crucial the context of the Cold War and Tito’s policy of non-alignment for Yugoslavia. As Moll notes, “this region remained outside the divide between Western and Eastern Europe,” and even after the fall of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the process of excluding Yugoslav memory continued.
Consequently, for all eight decades since the end of the Second World War, the European memory of resistance has been missing a key element. “The Yugoslav partisans not only formed a real army, but they were the only ones to free themselves from the occupiers and collaborators, with the support of the Allies,” the German historian explains.
The consequences of the 1990s must also be considered. As Sasso points out, the nationalist narrative promoted by the newly formed States in the wake of Yugoslavia’s dissolution “implied the erasure of the entire shared history of anti-fascist and internationalist struggle.”
This view is echoed by Bosnian historian Hašimbegović: “The new States did not need the old heroes, brotherhood, unity, or the museums of the Revolution, so they erased their common history and heritage from public discourse.” Even the Second World War has been increasingly read through the same ethno-nationalist lens that led to the Yugoslav Wars.
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