Career
Sotirovic entered the Yugoslav Army in 1934, and in 1940, he began studying at Yugoslav Military Academy. Promoted to Captain, he fought in the 1941 Invasion of Yugoslavia, after which he joined guerilla forces of General Draza Mihailovic, the Chetniks. Captured by the Wehrmacht, he was sent with other Yugoslav officers to Prisoner Of War Camp Near
325 in Rawa Ruska.
After the transfer to a camp in Stryj, Sotirovic simulated appendicitis and was taken to a hospital. He fled on January 13, 1944, and soon made contact with local Home Army unit, which took him to a hideout in the village of Zubrza near Lwow. After identity check, Sotirovic was in late March 1944 sent to the Home Army’s 14th Regiment of Jazlowiec Uhlans, commanded by Colonel Andrzej Choloniewski.
As his deputy, he participated in the pacification of a Ukrainian village Szolomyja, in which headquarters of a local branch of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army was located.
He also fought in the Lwow Uprising, attacking German positions east of the city. On July 31, 1944, Sotirovic was arrested by the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. Together with other Home Army officers, he managed to escape behind the San river.
On March 5, 1945, he was arrested again near Dynow. During an escape attempt he broke his foot, jumping off a balcony.
In early April 1945, Sotirovic joined anti-Communist forces near Rzeszow.
His unit cooperated with local National Armed Forces unit and anti-Ukrainian peasant unit from the village of Grabowka. After several clashes with the Ukrainians, Sotirovic, who had been promoted to Major, convinced the warring sides to sign a local truce, on May 29, 1945 in Siedliska. Both sides recognized the Soviets as their common enemy, and ceased fighting each other.
The last raid of Sotirovic’s unit was a raid on a Soviet column, which took place on June 25, 1945 near Domaradz.
He then moved to Lower Silesia, briefly serving as the president of the town of Leśna (Marklissa). Surrounded by a group of his former soldiers, Sotirovic boarded his people on a train with ethnic Germans being moved to the west, and left Poland for United States Occupation Zone in Germany (see Allied-occupied Germany).
He then moved to France, taking on the name Jacques Roman. Sotirovic settled in Monaco.
He died on 5 or 6 June 1987, during a pilgrimage to Mount Athos in Greece.
