Aleksandra Rebic at the Mihailovich monument
on the grounds of the Serbian Orthodox Holy Trinity Center
in Binbrook, Hamilton Ontario Canada.
July 28, 2013.
General Draza Mihailovich was born in Ivanjica, Serbia in April of 1893. He became an orphan as a very young child, losing both mother and father to illness. He was moved to Belgrade, Serbia and that is where he was raised by other family members who took him in and loved him. It is in Belgrade that he grew up. It is in Belgrade that he went to school. It is in Belgrade where he developed a love for the military and became a military officer, just in time for the First Balkan War, in which he participated, with honors. Those honors would accumulate as war would become an integral part of the rest of his life.
It is in Belgrade that he chose to decline to surrender to the Nazi war machine that dominated and occupied the former Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941. It is in the Ravna Gora hills of Serbia that he began his legendary resistance to the fascist occupier.
It was Belgrade that became his beloved home. It was Belgrade that he defended to the very end, from both the Nazi occupier and the Communist terror that was poisoning his beloved homeland.
It was in Belgrade where he was put through a phony trial after the war and executed, his remains still unfound to this day and no gravesite to honor his mortality.
I've had the opportunity and privilege to see a number of monuments to Mihailovich in America and Canada. There are more throughout the former Yugoslavia and the world-wide Serbian diaspora that I haven't seen. They are all unique. They all honor the nobility of General Mihailovich. I appreciate them all, and God Bless the Serbs who contributed to making the erection of those monuments possible.
The elephant in the room is this:
WHY IS THERE NO MONUMENT TO MIHAILOVICH IN BELGRADE?
Though Belgrade still has to rid itself of the Red Plague, I know in my heart that there are enough patriots in Serbia that can prevail if they want to, and make a monument to Mihailovich a reality in the city that owes him a debt that it must repay for the sake of redemption.
There is no excuse. There is no justification.
IT'S TIME FOR REDEMPTION. RAISE A MONUMENT TO MIHAILOVICH IN BELGRADE.
Sincerely,
Aleksandra Rebic
*****
If you would like to get in touch with me, Aleksandra, please feel free to contact me at ravnagora@hotmail.com
*****