Life of Milka Jakšić, resident at the Seniors’ Home in Tuzla, might be a good story for a movie.
Born in 1924 in Bosanska Krupa, this vivid old lady spent nearly five years in the partisans, side by side with the former lifelong president of Yugoslavia and the supreme commander of the armed forces at the time, Josip Broz Tito.
Milka was taken to the partisans by Branko Ćopić, who originated from the same area as Milka. “Branko Ćopić was my teacher, while I was attending classes in Krupa. He came to our home and took me to Drvar on a horse. I was the only female child of seven children that my parents had,” Jakšić remembers.
During the war, Milka worked as a nurse, she has been wounded several times, and she received seven medals for the contribution to the fight.
The last time she saw Tito during the Second World War was during the battle of Neretva. They met again some twenty years later, at a hospital in Belgrade, when she paid him a visit.
“That was a special feeling. Tito was already a serious statesman, but still he hosted me as his war-time friend. He approached me with hands wide open and a smile on his face, as if we have seen each other couple days before,” Milka said.
Among numerous citizens of the former Yugoslavia, Milka attended Tito’s funeral.
This elderly woman from Krajina, of good spirit and great mood, has been staying at the Seniors’ Home in Tuzla for the past year. She is quite healthy, considering her age, spending her elderly days with other residents of the Home.
(Source: faktor.ba)
