He died at the age of 96, the guardian of the Serbian sector for decades Allied Cemeteries of Zeitenlk Giorgos Michailovits. The news of his death came from a post by Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic on social media, where – among other things – he states that Mihajlovic died around 5:30 this afternoon.

“His lifelong wish was to get a Serbian passport and that wish was fulfilled. Sincere condolences to his family and all his friends. Eternal glory to him”, says the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia in his post about the most familiar face of the Allied Cemeteries, since for decades there was the home, work and duty of Giorgos Mihailovic.

Among other things, the deceased had been honored in 2014, during his visit to Thessaloniki, by the (then) Patriarch of Serbia Irenaeus by awarding him the medal of Saint Savva of the Serbian Church, while two years later he was also honored for his contribution at a special event of the municipality of Neapolis – Sykeon. In 2021, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia at the time, Nikola Selaković, awarded him the “Mother Serbia” award.

“I was born over there, in Zeitinlik. I’m a guard, the third in line. My grandfather’s name was Savvas Mihailovic, my father was also a security guard and he died in 1960, my name is Giorgos-Djortze in Serbian” said Giorgos Mihailovic, whose grandfather was a soldier, at the event organized in his honor by the Municipality of Neapolis – Sykeon of the First World War.

“We held ceremonies on May 9 (anniversary of the end of World War II) and November 11 (anniversary of the end of World War I) and old warriors came, widows came… there were many who went soldiers and did not see their children who were born. It is not something that you can understand from the outside. The last old warrior died eight years ago. Many, every year, came and wore the uniforms and hats of the A’PP”, Giorgos Michailovits said during his award ceremony in 2016.

In his military uniform, with the doublet always well worn on his head, during the years he served as the warden of the Serbian sector of the Allied Cemeteries, he had received presidents, prime ministers, patriarchs, bishops, ambassadors and consuls of other countries and guided them to the mausoleum of the Serbian sector, where the bones of thousands of Serbian soldiers and symbols of the battles are kept. But mostly he had welcomed and guided thousands of old warriors and ordinary citizens, relatives, descendants of the fallen who were looking for a memory from their own people. At the entrance to the mausoleum, he always had a packet of Serbian unfiltered cigarettes (the brand the soldiers smoked at the fronts) left on the table, as well as some slivovica (plum raki) for the traditional Serbian treat in memory of the fallen.

He retired in 2014, due to his advanced age, but he used to go to Zeitenlik in the afternoons and meet the visitors, many of whom were Serbs. “I may not be able to walk, because my legs hurt, my hands may be deformed, but as long as my heart and mind are working, I will offer, I will come here,” he said in an interview with APE-MPE and the journalist Katerina Gianniki and Giorgos Mihailovic, on the occasion of the honorary distinction awarded to him in 2021 by the then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Serbia.