Memoirs of a Serbian Refugee: The Life of Milan Koprivica
Memoirs of a Serbian Refugee: The Life of Milan Koprivica
This book is the life story of our beloved Djedo, Milan Koprivica (Fr. Dusan’s father), an ethnic Serb who was born in Macedonia and fled with his family to Serbia after Yugoslavia fell under Nazi Occupation in World War II. He, his family, and hundreds of thousands of ethnic Serbs, became thrust between the colossal weight of rival ideologies that divided villages and tore families apart: The Nazis, whose program of ethnic cleansing and genocide held the country in its demonic grip. And that of the Communists, the resistance under whose fist innocent lives also became just as expendable.
On Sept. 1, 1944, the day of his sixteenth birthday, Milan said good-bye to his mother and joined the 2nd Toplica Gvozdeni Puk to be with his older brother Dusan who was trying to avoid capture by the Communists. They promised her they would return home in a few weeks. Sadly, his brother perished in the war. But Milan would not see home again for more than 20 years. After the war Milan spent the next few years surviving in post-war camps before escaping and making his way to England. F
earful of returning home to Yugoslavia which was now under the Communists, he immigrated to Canada in 1952. There he learned how to become a draft engineer and eventually married his sweetheart Ellen from Detroit. There they raised their family of four sons and a daughter.
The cover is a photo of Milan the day he was baptized (1928). He is held by his godmother on the right; his father and mother are standing; his godfather is on the left holding his sister Milica; his brother Dusan is in the middle.
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