 Because of his political work, he was incarcerated eleven times up to 1940, and after that when Nazi Germany invaded Yugoslavia in 1941, he went underground.He died the same year in Karlovac, around the age of 40, as one of the early organizers of the partisan units in the region.Posthumously he was awarded with the title of people's hero, and the municipality of Ivanec made his house in Vuglovec a memorial museum in 1965.