THE SAKER • OCTOBER
11, 2019
This is a very special day for me, because the topics I will be covering
are all very dear to my heart and to my entire family. Following the Bolshevik
revolution my family and another 1.5 million Russians fled their beloved
motherland at the end of the civil war. All our so-called European “allies”
immediately betrayed us (what else is new?), organized an intervention and
backed the russophobic Bolshevik regime (yes, helping both side in turn, like
the Empire today in, say, the Kurdish areas of Iraq and Syria). All except one:
the Serbs which, at the time, were triumphant (WWI) but also had to rebuild a
war ravaged Serbia, with most of its infrastructure destroyed, and coping with
the death of nearly 30% of its entire population.
They welcomed us with open arms and generous hearts, they recognized all
the former Russian officials and officers in their pre-1917 capacity, and they
gave refuge to the bishops, priests and faithful of the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile whose
birthplace became the city of Sremski Karlovci in
Serbia.
My family lived in Belgrade and my mother was born in the Topčidersko
Brdo neighborhood of Belgrade. All her life she spoke a perfect Serbian, like a
native; as for my Godmother, she was a pure Serb (and she also spoke Russian to
perfection). I want to mention that to explain that the ties between my family
and the Serbian nation were both strong and deep.
I strongly believe that all Russians owe a great debt of gratitude to
the Serbian people, even those who don’t know about this (more about that
later). And not just for how they accepted our refugees, but for many other
instances of Russian-Serbian friendship in history.
The contrast between the Serbs and our so-called “Orthodox” or, even
more so, Slavic brothers could not be greater. We even have a special word for
that: the Serbs we call “братья”
(meaning “brothers”) whereas the rest of them many of us simply call “братушки” which
is hard to translate but I suppose “one-way-brothers” or even “pretend
brothers” is adequate. We all know how many times our “one-way-brothers” have
betrayed us, even if they owe the existence of their countries to Russia (I
personally an ancestor who died while liberating Bulgaria from the Ottoman
yoke!). In fact, they are still at it nowadays (not every single individual, of
course, but taken as a nation, this is true beyond any doubt – just look how
they allow their national territories to be used by NATO to try to threaten
Russia) . Next time they have a problem with their neighbors, they can ask NATO
(good luck with that!) – because we sure ain’t coming again. Ever!
But today, I want to touch on a very special kind of Serb, the much
vilified, slandered and otherwise hated Serbian Chetniks of
the Yugoslav army and their leader, the Serbian hero Draza Mihailovich (Дража Михаиловић).
I had the rare fortune of meeting quite a few Serbian officers in my
life, from those who fought against NATO during the AngloZionist aggression
against Bosnia, Serbia and its Kosovo province to the old Chetnik officers and
soldiers who created the most effective and by far the biggest resistance
movement to Hitler prior to the invasion of the USSR. I also met quite a few
Russian, pre-1917 imperial officers and their families (mostly in Argentina)
and I vividly remember how these old soldiers spoke with a heartfelt admiration
and gratitude about Mihailovich himself and his men. So close were the Russians
and Serbians in exile that they often inter-married (like my uncle and my
Godmother).
My purpose here is not to write a bio of Mihailovich, or even to
introduce him. For that purpose I will post a truly exceptionally well made
film which is now freely available on YouTube (for how long? Download and make
copies, folks!) and which pretty much explains it all, in fascinating details.
No, what I want to do today is much more modest. To share with you the
reasons for my belief that any future Serbia worthy of being called Serbia can
only be and will be founded on the memory of Draza Mihailovich and on the
centuries of honored Serbian heroes that he epitomized.
I know that I have a lot of communist readers and friends, and I ask
them for their patience and understanding. The truth is that those calling
themselves Communists in 2019 are very different from the type of Communists
which would be found in the Europe of 1900-1946. In some way this is very bad,
since most modern so-called “communists” have never read Marx or Engels,
never-mind Lenin or Hegel. But in other ways, this is very good, since modern
communists do not consider patriotism as “bourgeois” or religion the “opium of
the people”. Friends, a long time ago I wrote that the “Whites” and the “Reds”
(using a Russian categories but which can, I think, be transposed to the
Serbian reality) will never agree on the past, even if they could agree
on the future. What comes next is about the past, so let’s simply agree to
disagree and not let this difference in opinion affect us okay?
The resemblances between the fate of the Russian nation and the Serbs
are many, as are the differences. But one thing which we sure have in common:
the communists who took power over us did all they could to deprive us from our
historical memory. Worse, they slandered our nations, our traditions, our
cultures and our faiths for two very basic reasons:
- They
absolutely hated us, both Russians and Serbs
- They
had to justify not only their reforms (forced social engineering, really),
but the terror they unleashed
By this mechanism Czar Nicholas II became a weak imbecile, his wife a
mistress of Rasputin and an agent of the Germans, pre-1917 Russia a “prison of
the people” (btw – (prewar Yugoslavia in communist propaganda was also called a
“prison of peoples”, with the Serbs as jailers), Russian Orthodoxy “retrograde”
and “ritualistic”, the Russian people “chauvinists” and the Russian ruling
classes (old nobility, Petrine aristocracy, merchants, industrialists, clergy,
philosophers, intelligentsia, etc.) all became “class enemies” of the people
(in 1922 the Bolsheviks even managed to expel Russia’s leading intellectuals in
the infamous “Philosopher’s ship“!
These were the lucky ones, by the way, the others died in the Soviet GuLAG or
were simply shot ). Furthermore, the role of the US, Germany and the UK in
financing the subversion of Russia was totally obfuscated.
In Serbia a very similar thing happened, only later. You will see in the
movie itself to what degree the true story of Draza Mihailovich and the
Chetniks was corrupted and perverted in the (new) official doxa of
the AngloZionist Empire.
I ask you to please watch this movie before reading on.
Personally, I am deeply moved by this film, especially by the old
Chetnik shown at the end.
I had the fortune of meeting the “tail end” of the world this old
Chetnik soldier knew.
His tears are my tears.
* * *
In 2015, the high court of Serbia officially rehabilitated General
Dragoljub “Draza” Mihailovic, repudiating the farcical trial staged by the
communist regime in 1946. “The court established that the controversial
ruling was made in an illegitimate trial for political and ideological reasons,
and, under the law on rehabilitation, the decision cannot be appealed”. –inserbia.info.
While this was an important first step in repudiating the communist
falsification of history, the quisling government and educational system of
Serbia, continues to be guided by old communists and the foreign successors of
Vatican/Vienna school, who’ve spent centuries appropriating Serbian
achievements and rewriting several millennia of Serbian/Slavic history.
* * *
I find personalities like Czar Nicholas II or Draza Mihailovich
extremely important because they are what I call “polarizers”, that is
personalities who have been both despised and hated as well as revered and
loved. Why is that important? Because if you pick the right “polarizing
personality” you can very quickly establish how much your interlocutor knows
and what his real values are. There are many more such personalities, beginning
even with Christ our Lord Himself, of course (I am come to send fire on the
earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled? But I have a baptism to be
baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished! Suppose ye that
I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division: For
from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two,
and two against three. The father shall be divided against the son, and the son
against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against
the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in
law against her mother in law; Luke 12: 49-53). Of course, this is not
about dividing families or creating strife, but about showing “your true face”
and how much you are willing to sacrifice for your values. By the way, in my
usage “polarizing personality” is value neutral. Thus Hitler would be a very good
example of an evil polarizing personality.
In fact, Czar Nicholas II and Draza Mihailovich have many things in
common, but I want to mention two: they both refused to leave their people even
though it meant sure death, and their murderers were so afraid of their MORAL
(not legal or, even less so, military) authority that they not only massacred
them (in the case of Czar Nicholas with his entire family, children included)
and concealed the place where their bodies were destroyed and dumped.
Personally, I even see a degree of resemblance between the two men, especially
in their eyes: they are both filled with a special sad kindness, a kind of
Christ-like meek resignation. They both perfectly knew that they would not only
be murdered, but smeared, vilified by many clueless generations. I can only
hope that they also knew that the historical truth would one day be restored!
Why is that so important? Because you cannot rebuild a civilization on
fuzzy, lukewarm and otherwise uninspiring models. I would even argue that any
action needs to be predicated on a solid spiritual/ideological basis to be
meaningful (you just don’t do meaningful things just to do them, our most
important actions are often just means towards a higher goal). This is, by the
way, a great weakness of the current AngloZionist empire: while it does inspire
plenty of derision and hate, it probably stopped truly inspiring anybody
decades ago – yet another sure sign of decay.
Of course, I am acutely aware that there are many Russians who don’t
think highly of Czar Nicholas II or even still despise him for being the
superficial, weak and dumb moron the Soviet propaganda machine (and the
liberal-democratic Masonic propaganda machine before that!) painted him to be,
just as there are no doubt Serbs who either dislike/despise Draza because of
the Titoist propaganda. In most cases this is just simple ignorance. Once the
freedom to investigate the past is truly restored (like it is in Russia today),
the inevitable always happens: those who were orphans of their own history and
culture gradually rediscover them and then they operate a radical ideological
change (who would have predicted in the 1980s or even 1990s that a Russian
defense minister would convert to Orthodoxy and publicly make the sign of the
cross before a military parade or that a Russian contingent in Khmeimim would
have not one, but two churches built on that base?).
Think of Russia and Serbia as “Petri dishes”
in which the bacteria of historical memory have just began to grow and, rather
than looking at the current number of “bacteria with a restored historical
memory”, look at the nature of these bacteria and the nutrient rich-soup in
which they are located.
Our countries are the Petri dish. We are the bacteria.
Bon appétit!
* * *
I vividly remember how the AngloZionist propaganda machine described the
Serbian people in general, and especially the Chetniks, as genocidal murders
hellbent on “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” (Serbs, Croats and
Bosnian-Muslims are from the same ethnicity; only their religions are
different; “Bosniac” is a term popularized by the US State Department). Most of
these lies have long been debunked by numerous authors, the truth is already
out there but, just like with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the Kennedy
assassination,GLADIO or 9/11, the truth is out there, but very few care.
The truth is that the western civilization has decayed to a state which
could be described as “truth free”. A simpler way to put it that for most
people (alas, most people are still brainwashed) facts simply do not matter.
The truly dull ones will only seek “ideological comfort” while most of the rest
simply don’t care as long as their current consumption rates can be maintained
or, better, increased. The rest, for them, is basically irrelevant.
Inside Yugoslavia a similar process of “induced amnesia” and “historical
reprogramming” took place during the Tito years and even after. Even modern
Serbian politicians, plenty of which are corrupt and dependent on US or EU
“grants”, continue to parrot the Titoist propaganda. But deep inside (some of)
the Serbian people the memory of Draza is just as alive as the memory of Czar
Nicholas II is alive in the memory of (some of) Russian people. This historical
memory has not been restored to our nations, but there is already enough of
this memory currently coming out from it’s clandestinity to worry our
“liberals” and “democrats” and to absolutely outrage the western media.
This being said, I don’t believe for one second that Russia or Serbia
will ever become a monarchy again (in spite of being a monarchist myself). In
fact, I hope this never happens because if it does, it will be a
pseudo-monarchy run by some parliament and with a useless parasite à la Queen
Elizabeth II totally under the control of Masonic loges. A real Orthodox
monarchy can only exist in a truly Orthodox country and with a truly free
Orthodox Church, not in a country where the vast majority of Orthodox
Christians are truly Orthodox only in name, in a “cultural” sense, and who see Orthodoxy
as a national rather than as a spiritual phenomenon. In fact, I believe that we
are already well into the “End Times” in which the Church of Christ will shrink
down to the “small flock” mentioned in the Gospels and Apocalypse. These are
times in which an Orthodox monarchy cannot exist since the τὸ κατέχον
(“the [one] who restrains”) has been “taken out of the way” (2 Thes
2:6-7) because Nicholas II was this “katehon” and now the “mystery of
iniquity doth already work” (there is also the famous prophecy about Moscow the
Third Rome, a status which that city lost in 1917, which concludes
with the words “and there shall be no fourth“).
But, assuming we don’t all die in a nuclear war courtesy of the Neocons,
neither can the future Russia or Serbia be founded on the values, policies and
actions of figures like Lenin or Tito (if only because their countries – the
USSR and Yugoslavia – don’t exist anymore; besides, Lenin hated Russia as much
as Tito hated Serbia).
A couple of years ago I wrote an essay entitled “Kosovo will be liberated”
in which I suggested the following thought experiment:
Imagine for a few minutes that for some reason the
Empire collapsed. No more NATO and probably no more EU. Or maybe just a little
NATO and just a little EU left in spite of it all. But, more importantly,
no Camp Bondsteel.
What do you think would happen?
I gave my answer about what I believe would happen externally,
about how the Serbian nation will inevitably be
reunited and Kosovo liberated. Today, I am trying to imagine what would
happen inside Serbia, before Kosovo can be liberated.
Internally, the conditio sine qua non for a
rebirth of Serbia is the restoration of the historical truth and that
means first and foremost to restore the truth about the cowardly slaughter of
well over 1,500,000 Serbs by Croatians, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Bulgarians
and Hungarians (yes, this was a real, full-scale genocide; the original
Papist-Croatian (*not* German Nazi!!) plan was to convert 1/3rd of Serbs, expel another
1/3rd and murder the remaining 1/3rd) by an
informal but no less toxic combination of *real* Nazi-collaborators (Croats and
Bosnian-Muslims), the genocidal policies of the Papacy in the so-called
“Independent State of Croatia”, the actions of the Communist Partisans, the
typical “grand game” policies and betrayals of the British (who used the Serbs
as cannon fodder against elite SS divisions), the active support of the Soviet
Union and the total indifference of the US and the self-centered nations of
western Europe.
While one WWII genocide is exploited and propagandized, the Genocide of
the Serbian people is hideously kept hidden. Their executioners, to this day,
celebrated by the empire and aided in their continued attempts to erase the
memory of their victims. Dr. Gideon Greiff, Israel’s foremost expert on
Auschwitz, whose recently published book “Jasenovac, the Auschwitz of the
Balkans”, details the killing of over 800,000 Serbs, in the Jasenovac death
camp. According to Dr. Greiff, Jasenovac, one of many Vatican sanctioned death
camps, in the Nazi puppet state of Croatia, there were “57 different ways of
killing the victims”. “I am sure that there weren’t as many in Auschwitz. It’s
a world record. There has not been something of the kind in the history of the
humankind,” he said, adding that there should be no doubt about the number of
the (overall) victims, and recalling that an investigation by a joint
Croatian-Serbian commission showed that this number was 1.4 million (all quotes
from a television interview with Dr. Greiff on
Serbian Television). Finally, to learn of the
true horrors faced by the Serbian nation in this monstrous Papist genocide
attempt of the Serbian nation, make sure to check out this webpage:
It will give you all the details about what the author called “The
most horrifying religious massacre of the 20th century“.
As for Dr Greiff’s book “Jasenovac – Auschwitz of the Balkans”
is available on Amazon,
but at a very steep price (I sure cannot afford and I wish it was available
online somewhere).
This restoration of the truth will have to inevitably include Tito’s
communists murder of tens of thousands Serbian intellectuals, Orthodox priests,
Chetniks and their families, after the end of WWII.
Furthermore, all the countries, public entities and personalities which
directed these crimes will have to be exposed. Not to stick them into a
Nuremberg-like tribunal (not a bad idea, but it was poorly implemented;
besides, for Russia and Serbia, most evil doers are not long dead anyway), but
to stick their memory in a “historical tribunal” in which historians will be
the defending and prosecuting lawyers and our people the jury (God, obviously,
being the only true judge).
Simply put, I will use a metaphor of Alexander Solzhenitsyn here, the
relationship of the Russian civilization to the Bolshevik state, and the
relationship of the Serbian civilization with the Titoist state is the same one
which can be found between a healthy body and a malignant tumor: yes, they
definitely share a lot of common DNA (Russia, for example, has always been a
collectivistic and “social” society), but they also have enough differences to
make the latter a mortal threat to the former. Furthermore, just as with a
malignant tumor, it is extremely difficult to fully eradicate just the tumor
without affecting the healthy tissues. Solzhenitsyn added that in his opinion
the Russian nation will need about two centuries to fully heal from the effects
of Bolshevism.
So this is not about doing what the Communists did and trashing our past
just from another point of view. There were great heroes and very good people
who lived in our Communist past, and great feats were accomplished in numerous
fields during these years. It is about restoring the historical truth,
something which every honest person should support and even participate in.
Otherwise our people will look like prisoners freed from a concentration camp
but who continue to wear the prison clothes given to them by their (now former)
tormentors.
Truth be told, since 2000 Russia has managed to accomplish a truly
miraculous rebirth, especially in the light of the true war (even if this war
is currently about 80% informational one, 15% economic and only 5% kinetic) of
the AngloZionists against Russia. Serbia is in a much worse situation, in some
ways almost as bad as the Russia of the 1990s. But I am confident that a
“Serbian Putin” will appear, apparently from “nowhere”, and
that the Serbian people will rally around him/her just like the Russians
rallied around Putin.
Finally, when the time comes for the Serbian nation to rise up and
liberate itself, I am confident that the recent examples of Russians fighting
for Serbia in Bosnia and Serbs fighting for Russia in the Donbass will inspire not
just volunteers, but whoever sits in the Kremlin.
Serbian volunteers in Novorussia and their Russian comrades in arms.
To illustrate just how much the truth has been distorted, regarding the
Serbs, whose honor and courage, have been documented, both by allies and
enemies, throughout history, I strongly encourage you to read the last sermon
of pastor Freidrich Griesendorf, published in the Eversburg (German) newspaper:
“Last sermon of a German clergymen” (reposted and translated here)
I now leave you with the two videos mentioned in the main film.
First, the interview of US vets about their experience with the
Chetniks:
And, last but most definitely not least, there is now an extremely
valuable website fully dedicated to the memory of Draza Mihailovich:
In conclusion, I want to address all those who have a very different
view of Draza, the Serbs or anything else. What I presented here is my
personal, absolutely sincere, point of view. But, of course, I may be wrong (I
often am!).
I not only have no problem with fact-based and logically-constructed
criticisms, I sincerely INVITE THEM! However, I have to warn you that any
attempts to simply spew a load the garden variety hatred towards Draza, the
Serbs or anything else will be intercepted and sent to where it belongs: the
trash bin of our servers and of history! We have already heard it all, courtesy
of the legacy AngloZionist media, we don’t need that repeated here.
*******
ADDENDUM: since Draza, the Chetniks
and the Serbs have now been described as monsters, I decided to add a number of
quotes which not only show that in the past they were considered as heroes, but
also show what some prominent historical figures had to say about them.
1. The Hero Whom You Gave to History Has Not His Like
in Our Time
“Twenty years after the death of Draza Mihailovich he
is undimmed in his glory as a defender of liberty against the Fascist terror,
who defended it also against the Communist terror. He had no moment of
weakness, nor of bitterness. I know no instance where he reproached those who
were guilty of his betrayal.
Twenty years ago I knew he was innocent of all charges
against him, and since then I have had many further proofs of his innocence. His
abandonment was a crime, and like all crimes it brought no real profit to the
criminals.
I loved your nation before the war, I have loved and
honored it more and more as the years have gone by and I have seen that the
hero whom you gave to history has not his like in our time.”
__ Dame Rebecca West ( to the Serbs July 8, 1966)
2. As I sit writing these lines in the early
dawn before a motionless sea, Mihailovich is facing the firing squad. I am not
concerned with what the first of the Maquisards is supposed to have done or not
done; what worries me is that nobody bothers about him
__ George Bernanos, 1946
3. The British press ‘splashed’ the German
reward for Tito, but only one paper mentioned (in small print) the reward for
Mihailovich: and the charges of collaborating with the Germans continued.
__George Orwell, 1946
4. General Dragoljub Mihailovich distinguished
himself in an outstanding manner as Commander-in-Chief of the Yugoslavian Army
Forces and later as Minister of War by organizing and leading important
resistance forces against the enemy which occupied Yugoslavia, from December
1941 to December 1944. Through the undaunted efforts of his troops, many United
States airmen were rescued and returned safely to friendly control. General
Mihailovich and his forces, although lacking adequate supplies, and fighting
under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the Allied cause, and were
instrumental in obtaining a final Allied victory.
— Harry
S. Truman, March 29, 1948
5. The ultimate tragedy of Draza Mihailovic
cannot erase the memory of his heroic and often lonely struggle against the
twin tyrannies that afflicted his people, Nazism and Communism. He knew that
totalitarianism, whatever name it might take, is the death of freedom. He thus
became a symbol of resistance to all those across the world who have had to
fight a similar heroic and lonely struggle against totalitarianism. Mihailovic
belonged to Yugoslavia; his spirit now belongs to all those who are willing to
fight for freedom.
— Ronald
Reagan, September 8, 1979
6.“The unparalleled rescue of over 500 American
Airmen from capture by the Enemy Occupation Forces in Yugoslavia during World
War II by General Dragoljub Mihailovich and his Chetnik Freedom Fighters for
which this “Legion of Merit” medal was awarded by President Harry S. Truman,
also represents a token of deep personal appreciation and respect by all those
rescued American Airmen and their descendants, who will be forever grateful.”
___ (NATIONAL COMMITTEE OF AMERICAN AIRMEN RESCUED BY
GENERAL MihailovićH – 1985)
7. “General Draza Mihailovic was a patriot, a
brave soldier and a gallant ally of the United States and every nation that
went to war in the early forties to destroy the tyrannies that sought to
enslave our world.Hundreds of American pilots owe their lives to General
Mihailovic and his forces and the American people will never forget that
debt.As long as there are patriots in any nation, the name of General Draza
Mihailovic will be remembered and revered”
– President Richard Nixon (April 21, 1966).
8. WHY MIHAILOVICH MATTERS
“As an American, I bow my head in shame whenever I think of the
terribly mistaken policy which led the Allied leaders in World War II to
abandon General Draza Mihailovich and throw their support instead to the
communist cohorts of Marshal Josip Broz Tito. It was an unbelievable aberration
of policy and of justice perpetrated by the Allies.
Mihailovich was the first insurgent in Europe. It was
he who raised the flag of resistance to the Nazi occupier – and by his action
he inspired the formation of resistance movements in all the subjugated countries.
He resisted the Nazis at the time when the Soviet
Union and the communists were still collaborating with them – and his early
resistance, by slowing down the Nazi timetable, was probably responsible for
preventing the fall of Moscow.
The contributions of Mihailovich to the Allied cause
were the subject of tributes by General Eisenhower, General De Gaulle, Field
Marshal Lord Alexander, Admiral Harwood, Anthony Eden, President Truman, and,
at later date of President Richard Nixon. For example, on August 16, 1942,
three top ranking British officers, Admiral Harwood, General Auchinleck, and
Air Marshal Tedder, sent the following joint wire to Mihailovich: “With
admiration we are following your directed operations which are of inestimable
value to the Allied cause.”
Today, no informed person takes seriously the
communist charges that Mihailovich collaborated with the Germans, or the
proceedings of the communist show trial in Belgrade which resulted in his
execution. The communists made the nature of their injustice clear when they
announced in advance of the trial, that Mihailovich would be executed after a
‘fair’ trial. And they also made it clear when they refused to take the
evidence of the American officers who served with him or of the American airmen
who were rescued by him.
Colonel Robert H. McDowell, chief of the last American
mission to General Mihailovich, and perhaps the most experienced intelligence
officer to serve with either side in Yugoslavia during World War II, took the
time after the War to go through the German intelligence files on Yugoslavia.
Not only did he find no evidence that Mihailovich collaborated with the Nazis,
but he found numerous statements establishing that Hitler feared the
Mihailovich movement far more than he feared the Tito movement.
The communists also feared Mihailovich more than they
did any other man. And that is why, when they executed him, they disposed of
his shattered body in a secret burial place, so that those who followed him and
revered him would not be able to come at night to drop tears and flowers on his
grave and tenderly offer a few words of prayer in gratitude to General
Mihailovich for his heroism and sacrifice.
But despite all of the abuse and all the precautions
of the communists, the truth about Mihailovich – now grown to the proportions
of a legend – still persists among the Serbian people. Evidence of this is the
remarkable article on Mihailovich which Mihajlo Mihajlov wrote for The New
Leader, just before Tito’s courts sentenced him to seven years of hard labor in
early March of this year.
I think that it is fitting that we in the free world
who are aware of the truth should also do everything in our power to set the
record straight and to bring about the ultimate vindication before the bar of
history – of one of the noblest figures of World War II.
Draza Mihailovich, in addition to being an outstanding
soldier and a great national leader, was a man who stood for everything that we
in America believe in. He was a true believer in the rights enshrined in our
own Declaration of Independence – the right to think and speak and pray in
accordance with one’s own religious, political, economic and social beliefs,
without government restraint or repression.
…the United States Congress should accede to the petition
of the American airmen that they be authorized to erect in Washington with
publicly subscribed funds, a monument which they would dedicate, in gratitude,
to “General Draza Mihailovich, Savior of American Airmen.”
Beyond this, there is still a larger debt which the
free world owes to the memory of General Draza Mihailovich. It is my hope that
this debt will some day be repaid in full through the liberation of his people
from communist tyranny.”
-Senator Frank J. Lausche, March 27, 1975
9. A Thanksgiving Tribute to the Americans from
the General. An
American Officer Remembers…
”As we proceeded out over the Adriatic my mind flashed back to one
incident which will always have great meaning for me. Before I was leaving for
my tour of Serbia, the Minister [General Mihailovich] had expressed a desire to
do something to honor America saying “Here we have Slava, the day of our patron
saint. What is America’s slava? ”
I thought for a moment and said, ‘We have four great
days, Christmas, New Year, Independence Day and Thanksgiving. Christmas we love
because it is the day of Christ. New Years we enjoy because we look with hope
to it, but on its Eve we celebrate, sometimes not too wisely but too well, and
often the day itself finds us with aching heads. Independence day would be
wonderful except for the sadness of sacrifice and mourning that sweeps the
South from the cause of our Civil War. Thanksgiving is our day, our Slava,
because that day we give Thanks to God for our founding Fathers and the
beginning of our country and freedom.’
Mihailovich replied, ‘Good, we would honor America and
on the Eve of that day each mountaintop of Serbia will have a fire lighted by
our peasants.’
On Thanksgiving Eve, three Americans standing in a
tiny village high in the Serbian mountains, saw a huge fiery “A” come into
being. Then another, and one after the other fires appeared until eleven peaks
were outlined.
This I remember. A magnificent tribute to America from
a truly great man.”
Colonel Albert B. Seitz, American Liaison Officer
with General Mihailovich
10. “The United States must insist on a fair and open
trial for General Mihailovich, anti-Red Chetnik hero, now in the hands of the
Communist regime of Marshal Tito in Yugoslavia if our future allies are to have
any confidence in our pledged word as a nation.
There is no real question about the fact that General
Mihailovich took up arms against the German invaders of his country in April,
1941, at a time when Soviet Russia was an ally of National Socialist Germany.
At that time the present dictator of Yugoslavia,
Marshal Josip Broz, called Tito, was an expatriate, studying in Moscow as a
faithful adherent of the Third International – the Comintern – which had
adopted the alliance with Hitler’s Germany as an internal program of aggression
for mutual benefit. For two and one half years, during the darkest days of the
struggle against Germany, Italy and Japan, Mihailovich, former minister of war
in Yugoslavia, fought on our side.
No question was raised as to his loyalty or valor
while there was real doubt about the outcome of the war. Only after our victory
was seen as to be certain did other elements in Yugoslavia flock to the
well-equipped and well-provisioned ranks of Tito, who then began to receive
from the United States and Britain all that had been promised – but not
delivered – to Mihailovich.
This request has been categorically refused by Tito,
whose supporters in the Kremlin now openly demand that all Tito’s claims be
ratified without argument.
From every point of view of American law, customs and
instinct, these proposals go against the grain. They contravene our basic
conception of fair play, honest dealing and of the right of every man accused
to be allowed witnesses in his defense.”
The Honorable Clare Boothe Luce (R) Connecticut, April
20, 1946
American playwright, editor, journalist, ambassador,
and first woman elected to U.S. Congress
11. “No people in Europe have a more heroic
record in this war than the Serbs. Among them, no hero is more glorious than
General Draza Mihailovic.”
– Watson Kirkconnell
12. Where
are the thunderers who once could speak
The Language of the Prophets, when the weak
Were broken and the good oppressed? Where are those
Whose words were cleansing fire, till there arose
the phoenix-armies from the martyrs’ dust
To make the word the deed, oppose the lust
Of tyrants and proclaim the prophets true?
Where is the gratitude our fathers knew
And sanctuary and penance for wrong power?
Did Milton fail the martyrs, Gladstone cower
Before the ruthless? Was the public pen
careful of epithet? And public men —
Were they afraid to say: “Alas we erred
And now confess our error. Let the word
Go out, perhaps to save a soul and save
Our souls”? Today the coward and the knave
Are kings. These are mean times. If it be doom,
Our tongues, at least, are free and there is room
For utterance that salves us if not saves.
Why should we ape the silence of graves?
And even these have epitaphs as tongues.
Since power is dumb before the powerful wrongs
Let one small voice salute the Serbian.
With shame at first, then prayer for that brave man.
“I.M. Draza Mihailovich (Murdered July 16, 1946)
by L. Aaronson, British Poet, July 1946
The Language of the Prophets, when the weak
Were broken and the good oppressed? Where are those
Whose words were cleansing fire, till there arose
the phoenix-armies from the martyrs’ dust
To make the word the deed, oppose the lust
Of tyrants and proclaim the prophets true?
Where is the gratitude our fathers knew
And sanctuary and penance for wrong power?
Did Milton fail the martyrs, Gladstone cower
Before the ruthless? Was the public pen
careful of epithet? And public men —
Were they afraid to say: “Alas we erred
And now confess our error. Let the word
Go out, perhaps to save a soul and save
Our souls”? Today the coward and the knave
Are kings. These are mean times. If it be doom,
Our tongues, at least, are free and there is room
For utterance that salves us if not saves.
Why should we ape the silence of graves?
And even these have epitaphs as tongues.
Since power is dumb before the powerful wrongs
Let one small voice salute the Serbian.
With shame at first, then prayer for that brave man.
“I.M. Draza Mihailovich (Murdered July 16, 1946)
by L. Aaronson, British Poet, July 1946
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