Serbia Owes a Debt to General Mihailovich: A True Man of the People

General Mihailovich among the Serbian people during World War Two.

SERBIA OWES A DEBT

By Aleksandra Rebic

September 1, 2006

 

Unlike his rival, Yugoslav communist leader Marshal Josip Broz Tito, General Draza Mihailovic was, and remained, a true man of the people in his beloved Serbia. Even as he rose to fame for being the first true resistance leader in occupied Europe during World War Two, General Draza remained a humble and simple man whom the people adored. He did not lie to them, he did not seek to rule over them, and the sacrifices they willingly made on behalf of the Allied cause would tear at his heart. The people remained loyal to General Mihailovich, just as he remained loyal to the Allies, to the very end.

There is something very wrong with there being a "House of Flowers" complete with lovely landscaping in Dedinje, one of the wealthy neighborhoods in Belgrade, with a bronze likeness of the dictator Tito watching over his white marble mausoleum hung with red velvet curtains, housing his massive marble, gold inscribed tomb, and there is not even a headstone, not even a marker, for the belovd General Draza, in all of Serbia.

It is not even known where General Mihailovich is buried.

Serbia must rectify this. She owes General Draza Mihailovich that. She owes the people that loved him and their descendants who know only the legend but who carry on the legacy that. He was a man of the people in the truest sense of the word - a hands on leader who was "in the trenches" with his men, who never took his people for granted, who chose to stay and meet his fate instead of leaving when evacuation was offered to him, and who paid for his love of his country with his life.

Serbia owes.



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