Introduction
Miloš Jeremić was born in 1892 in Resnik, a village 15km south of Belgrade, the capital of then the Kingdom of Serbia.
In the night of 29 July 1914, when the shelling of Belgrade, and thus the First World War, started he was about 22 years old.
According to his Serbian exhumation report he was serving the 3rd company, 4th battalion, 7th regiment infantry, while no rank was mentioned.
Until recently, when Miloš (Tanasijević) from Resnik visited our website and discovered that his great-great-grandfather Miloš died in the Netherlands, nobody from his family knew what happened exactly with Miloš Jeremić.
Below a picture of Miloš Jeremić, photo courtesy of his great-great-grandson Miloš. Location and date of the photo are unknown.
From Resnik (Serbia) to Nijmegen (NL)
The Austrian-Hungarian invasion of Serbia started on 29 July 1914, but it failed after their armies where defeated during the battle of Cer (August 1914) and the battle of Kolubara (November-December 1914).
Almost a year later, on 7 October 1915, the Kingdom of Serbia was invaded by a combined German and Austro-Hungarian force. On 14 October, the Bulgarians declared war. With his forces vastly outnumbered and outgunned, the Serbian Marshal (Vojvode) Radomir Putnik ordered a full retreat of the Serbian military south and west through Allied Montenegro and into neutral Albania on 25 November 1915.
Many soldiers were killed, but many were also captured by the Bulgarians, Austrian-Hungarians and the Germans. The book “Between the Barbed Wire” by Henri Habert describes the way, via different camps, about 38 Serbian POW’s who ended up in the Netherlands. While we have no proof of the road taken by Miloš, most likely he followed the same way as his comrades described in the book.
Most of them went via Braunau (now Broumov in the Czech Republic) or Heinrichsgrün (now Jindřichovice in the Czech Republic) to Prisoner of War camps in mostly North-West Germany like Soltau, Hameln or Bühnerbach.
The descendants of Miloš gave a us a picture and in this picture there is an inscription which stated that the picture was made by E. Schultze from Emden, which is in the North-western part of Germany, close to the Dutch border, around 300 km from Nijmegen.
On the back of the photo there is a stamp with the following information: Fotogr. Vergrößerungsanstalt Benditz, Zw. bd. Sielen 10, E. Schultze. The address Zwischen Beiden Sielen 10, is indeed located in the old town of Emden. The Benditz company in Emden was taken over by photographer Schultze (sometimes mentioned Schulze) in 1917.
Below a picture of Miloš Jeremić, photo courtesy of his great-great-grandson Miloš. Written in the picture is “E Schultze Emden”.
In the book from Henri Habert we found one soldier who described that he has been in Emden: “From Heinrichsgrün I was brought to Soltau, from where, after 14 days, with 200 men was sent to Emden where we loaded the ships with coal. There I worked 6 weeks, then I was sent to the camp of Bühnerbach and from there, with 30 comrades to the domain of Krupp, near Klausheide where I worked 28 months”.
Most likely Miloš arrived in Nijmegen, a city in the East part of the Netherlands, close to the border with Germany during his repatriation after the armistice of 11 November 1918. On his Dutch death certificate, it is written that he died on 18 January 1919 in Nijmegen.
Below the locations, which we could verify, where Miloš has been (from Google Maps, click to enlarge). For the full map go to Google Maps (link).
Nijmegen
Miloš died in Nijmegen at around 23h00 on 18 January 1919 according his Dutch death certificate (Nijmegen 1919 No. 74). His death was registered by the Mattheus Havekes who was a cigar maker. The second person who registered his death was Lambertus Johannes Lammers, a soldier from the (Dutch) colonial reserve army who was 40 years old at the time he reported Miloš’ death.
Miloš was buried in Nijmegen (Begraafplaats Rustoord, Postweg 60 in Nijmegen). His grave was exhumed in May 1938, together with the other Serbian graves in the Netherlands.
Even though the newspaper articles in 1938 mentioned that the remains of ‘89 Serbian soldiers’ were repatriated to ‘Yugoslavia’, the official documents of the time mention ‘Czechoslovakia’ as the destination.
The remains of Miloš and 87 others were transferred to Jindřichovice in Czechoslovakia (nowadays Czech Republic) via the Dutch/German border at Beek-Wyler. According to his Serbian exhumation report (no K. Br. 84024/XII) his remains were collected in box number 4. Miloš found his last resting place in Jindřichovice, together with 7658 other Serbian soldiers and 189 Russian soldiers (calculated as on 1940).
Picture below: inside the mausoleum in Jindřichovice (CZ), with lead box number 4 (photo by Fabian Vendrig).
1926: Monument in Resnik
As written in the introduction, his relatives did not know where Miloš died: they only knew he never returned home, so in 1926, when his wife Marica died, a monument in Resnik was erected to honour them both. This monument is until today still on the graveyard in Resnik.
Picture below: the monument for Miloš Jeremić in Resnik. 11.11.2015, photo by Fabian Vendrig. Click on the photo to enlarge.
Discovery
In October 2015 we were contacted by Miloš Tanasijević who is the great great-grandson of Miloš Jeremić. He did send us the pictures and invited us to come to Resnik. The 11th November (commemoration day of the Armistice of WWI!) we went to visit him and his family to meet. His family did not know when and where Miloš died, until they discovered the information about Miloš which was already available on our website.
Miloš Jeremić was married with Marica: they got two sons Živko and Života. Živko had a daughter, Ljubinka, and two sons: Slobodan and Ljubodrag. Ljubodrag was the father of Zorica and Slavica. Zorica is the mother of Miloš and we are grateful that they both shared their stories and pictures with us.
They shared the postcard below which was written by Miloš Jeremić and which was send to his family: on the other side of this card there is a picture of him (which you can see above on this page), which was made in Emden (Germany). It is almost unreadable, but we can see that he wrote “1917” and “Ja sam živ” (=Serbian for I am alive). The visible inscription ‘Deda Miloš’ (Serbian for ‘grandpa Miloš’) on the top was made at a later stage by his descendants.
Below: the postcard written by Miloš Jeremić, Emden (Germany) 1917.
Conclusion
Thanks to the information on this website the family of Miloš Jeremić now know that their great great-grandfather and great-grandfather died in Nijmegen on 18 January 1919 and not in Germany. They know now also that his remains are in the mausoleum in Jindřichovice, the Czech Republic.
Sources / Special thanks to
The following sources were used:
-National Archives of Serbia : http://www.archives.org.rs
Exhumation report , no K. Br. 84024/XII
Special thanks to:
-Zorica Tanasijević (great-granddaughter of Miloš Jeremić)
-Miloš Tanasijević (great-great-grandson of Miloš Jeremić)
Story by:
Tanja Vendrig, Fabian Vendrig and John Stienen.
