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On the 11/11/2018 Serbia commemorate, with its allies (France, UK, USA, Italy, Belgium etc.), that it was 100 years ago that the First World War (WWI) ended. A lot of events are organised in different countries. France for example will organise a big commemoration in Paris on 11/11 and the UK also announced several events. And Serbia, who lost in terms of percentage, the most people? It will organise a kind of “military drill” show through the country, it has some exhibitions and some commemorations,  a big TV show on 11/11, but that’s it. It surprises me that there are no huge commemorations where the public is invited to celebrate 100 years end of WWI.

It is estimated that Serbia lost more than 1.1 million inhabitants during the war, including both army and civilian losses. This represented more than 26 per cent of its then total population and 58 per cent of its adult male population.

Far away from military drills, receptions behind closed doors for politicians and other “VIPS” I think about the Serbian WWI soldiers which were focus of our voluntarily research (see www.secanje.nl).  They must have been very happy that they could go back after the years of suffering in the PoW (=Prisoner of War) camps of the German and Austro-Hungarian empires. They were captured in 1914, but most of them in 1915, while their other comrades died on the battlefield or retreated via Albania to the Greek island of Corfu.

Miloš for example from Resnik, a village close to Belgrade, died far away from his family: he was weak after all the PoW camps and the hard labour conditions there. When he got the Spanish flu he could not be saved any more: he died 18th January 1919 in Nijmegen (the Netherlands) while he was waiting to be transported back to Serbia.

With the help of people from Azanja we found another face behind a name: Milovan Milojević  who died in Garderen also in the Netherlands and also in January 1919.

When we had contact with the descendants of Đorđe (Đoka) Vukosavljević  they told us that they had also letters. These letters (see here) give an inside in the hard PoW life in the camps. He died also in the Netherlands and was later, in 1938,  exhumed to the mausoleum Jindřichovice (Czech Republic) , just as the remains of 87 other Serbian WWI soldiers who died in the Netherlands.

The mausoleum in Jindřichovice contains the remains of  7,469 Serbian soldiers and 189 Russian soldiers: it contains more remains of Serbian WWI soldiers than the, for Serbs so famous, Zeitenlik graveyard in Thessaloniki.

Together with my wife and our friend John, we did this research voluntarily and we are grateful to the people who provide us help. We created a digital space for these Serbian WWI heroes on the website www.secanje.nl. Tomorrow I commemorate without a parade or a TV-show,but I do it in silence: may their sacrifices never be forgotten!

Many times I passed the WWI monument in Kragujevac, without even noticing it. I am interested in WWI monuments here in Serbia since we started to research the fate of the Serbian WWI soldiers who died in the Netherlands (see www.secanje.nl). This time I stopped and took a closer look and to my positive surprise: this monument is beautiful!

Unfortunately there are no names on the monument so also not from Đorđe Vukosavljević (more information) who was from Kragujevac and died in the Netherlands in 1919.

More WWI monuments in Serbia you will find on a, far from completed, map I created on Google Maps. If you know more WWI monuments and you want me to add them to the map you can contact me.

During the First World War (WWI) several medical mission were active in the Balkans. In Serbia they all know about the Scottish women hospitals (link), Flora Sandes, Archibald Reiss and more. Less known are the Dutch Red Cross medical missions with the doctors Arius van Tienhoven and van Dijk and others doctors, nurses and supporting staff.

During our research to the fate of the 91 Serbian WWI soldiers who died in the Netherlands we found a heart-breaking article from 23^rd February 1919 in the “Telegraaf”, a national newspaper in the Netherlands. It was written and sent to the newspaper by  Ludovica Dominica Jeannette Koning, a nurse who served during several Red Cross missions on the Balkans. In July 1913 she served during the Second Balkan War (Serbia) and in July 1915 she served back again in Serbia during the First World War (most possibly in Kragujevac). In 1916 she served in Thessaloniki and Bitola until the summer of 1917 where she helped the wounded Serbs again. In January 1919 she is an active member of the committee who helped the Serbian Prisoners of War in the Netherlands. On behalf of that committee she wrote to the newspaper, here some extracts:

-BIJ DE ZIEKE SERVIËRS- (WITH THE SICK SERBS)

Nurse L. Koning writes to us:
“On behalf of the Serbian envoy in the Hague, I traveled to various cities and hospitals  the where Serbs are being treated so I pay these poor people a visit. When we provided care during the Balkan war to these good soldiers with their great powers of resistance, we could not have imagined that we would see a part of them again in a state in which they are now: exhausted, sick and without energy.

Later in the article she writes about an benefit evening which she helped to organise: In Amsterdam there was an art evening was which was held the 23th January for the benefit of the sick Serbian soldiers in our country and 1000 guilders were collected that evening.

The committee was therefore given the opportunity to provide the Serbs with some refreshments. Through such small acts of sympathy, the sick soldiers forgot their griefs for a moment which consists of ever-recurring melancholy reflections.“What will Serbia look like? Will my parents still be alive, my wife, my children, my brothers, my sisters? In what condition will I see them again? Does our house still exist? Are we, as we used to be, or did we become poorer? “How many died of hunger? Only a few people live in Serbia somebody told me.

When I asked if somebody wanted to sing the Serbian national anthem or any other song, the answer was: “In 4 years we have not sung, we cannot longer do it; we have had little laugh. We only worked hard, often for little or no food “. How Serbia was, I do not remember, said one, I do not know anything about Serbia anymore, but I longing for it.

When I came to bring their lemons, there was a cheer. In Germany there were no lemons or only for 30 Mark each, a Serb informed me, but in Serbia, they were cheap. The Serbs use lemon in tea, in wine, cognac, in sugar water or drink it undiluted. When I told the Serbs that I visited their country several times, their faces were filled with joy and I had to mention in which places and hospitals I worked, which doctors and soldiers I knew.She ends the article with: I left them with the thought: “How will these undernourished, weak soldiers still come through the long journey? “The Committee for the benefit of the Serbian soldiers in our country – of which the Consul General M. Merens is honorary chairman – is still willing to receive money, cigars, cigarettes, chocolates, chocolates, fruit (lemons), compote and illustrations. Many Serbian soldiers died in our country. Anyone who helps to give the survivors and the sick a few sunny moments do a nice job.

After her charity work for the committee for Serbian WWI soldiers in the Netherlands she continued to do good deeds for the Serbs: she started to work for  a  civil mission in Serbian and American service for orphanages in April 1919. Unfortunately it is not known until now what she did exactly, only we know that in November 1921 she moved back from Belgrade to Amsterdam. She died in an elderly house in Amsterdam in 1955, she became 81 years.

It is a pity that we could not find more information yet, but we should not forget those who took care of others and that also the Netherlands, although a neutral country during WWI,  contributed to help the wounded and the sick Serbian population and its soldiers.

The full original article can be found an Delpher (link) and the full translated article can be found here (link).