Ivan (Ivica) Vranetic was a teenager in Croatia when the war broke out, and risked his life countless times to help save the Jewish refugees that flooded his town. Many of Yugoslavia’s Jews had fled to Southern Croatia, after the Nazi forces had reached their country.

While these refugees had temporarily escaped Nazi oppression, they were met with hostility and indifference by the majority of the village’s residents. As battles between the Nazis and the partisans erupted in 1943, life for these Jewish refugees became increasingly endangered. Vranetic worked tirelessly to secure homes and hiding places for these Jewish refugees.

After the war, Vranetic kept in touch with many of the Jews he had rescued, including one woman named Arna Montilio. Some twenty years later, Vranetic went to visit her at her new home Israel. The two fell in love, and soon married.