Ruža Petrović was helping Yugoslav Partisans since the very beginning of the occupation of Istria by the Italian Social Republic. On July 22, 1944, 25 Italian fascists from Svetvinčenat broke into Režanci and searched Petrović's house because they suspected that she, her husband and his two brothers were helping Partisans. Since they found more clothing and food than they thought her family needed, they arrested her, and forced her to carry all of the extra goods that she had stored in the house to the army garrison in Svetvinčenat, where they eventually brutally tortured her. Despite severe torture, Petrović didn't reveal any information about the Partisans. After being released the next day she went home, but a group of fascists stopped her at halfway and started beating her again. After she was hit in the forehead with the gunstock, she fell to the ground so fascists tied her around a tree, after which one of them dug her eyes with a dagger. She was found by the villagers and first taken to the village of Skitača where Partisans had their headquarters and hospital, and afterwards to the surgical ward of the General Hospital in Pula where she spent 70 days rehabilitating. After she was released from the hospital, Petrović again rejoined antifascist movement, and, although blind, was helping the Partisan fighters by knitting socks and warm shirts and giving them moral support.