Jesuit priest Petar Perica executed in Dubrovnik in 1944

Petar Perica, a Jesuit priest and superior of the Jesuit community in Dubrovnik, was executed by Partisan forces in October 1944. Following the entry of Partisans into Dubrovnik, Perica was arrested along with fifty-three other prominent citizens and clergy members.

The victims were transported to the island of Daksu, where they were subjected to abuse and subsequently killed. Witnesses reported that Perica was stripped, mocked, and ultimately shot with an air rifle used for underwater fishing before being thrown into a pit. Following his execution, posters appeared in Dubrovnik claiming a military court had issued the sentence.

Perica, born in 1881, was a noted poet and spreader of devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. His works include the hymns ‘Zdravo Djevo, kraljice Hrvata’ and ‘Do nebesa nek se ori’. After decades of being a figure of Christian martyrdom, his remains were identified through DNA analysis and he was reinterred in Dubrovnik's Boninovo cemetery in 2010.