Momčilo Gavrić (soldier)

**Momčilo Gavrić** (Serbian: Момчило Гаврић;    ) was a Serbian child soldier, and the youngest soldier to serve during both the Serbian Campaign and World War I at just 8 years old, and was even awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat for participating in the Great Serbian Retreat and walking across the mountains of Albania with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army during the harsh and brutal winter of 1915-1916. Momčilo Gavrić also served in the Royal Yugoslav Army during the World War II when Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany; he was subsequently also a Nazi concentration camp survivor and a survivor of the prisons of the Yugoslav Communist authorities where he was tortured and labeled as a "enemy of the people" after World War II.

## Biography 
**Momčilo Gavrić** (Serbian: Момчило Гаврић) was born on or around  to a Serbian peasant family in the rural forest village of Trbušnica near the slopes of Mount Gučevo (or according to his military certificate in the nearby town of Banja Koviljača), in the northwestern Kingdom of Serbia (in the modern-day Loznica Municipality, Mačva District, Republic of Serbia). Momčilo was the eighth of eleven children of Alimpije Gavrić and his wife, Jelena "Elena" Gavrić.
### World War I 
After the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, on 28 June 1914 in Sarajevo (back then in Austria-Hungary) by Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb, Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia for the assaination of the archduke and invaded Serbia the next month on 28 July, thus starting both the Serbian Campaign and World War I. 
Following the invasion, Momčilo Gavrić's two elder brothers Bogozav and Svetozar Gavrić were drafted into the Royal Serbian Army and were subsequently sent to the frontline with their unit to fight against the Austro-Hungarian Army; Momčilo Gavrić's eldest sister got married and subsequently left the family to live with her husband in Banja Koviljača, a nearby town located about 3 miles northwest of the village of Trbušnica.

During the first invasion of Serbia of July-August 1914, Austro-Hungarian soldiers initiated their offensive in invading and occupying western Serbia in their attempts to reach Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia; during their offensive, the Austro-Hungarian troops committed brutal mass murders and atrocities against many of the Serbian civilians living there and destroyed their houses and villages; during the atrocities, sometime between 12 and 15 August 1914, Austro-Hungarian troops occupied the village of Trbušnica (where Momčilo Gavrić lived with his family) and, the same day, they commited a brutal massacre against many of the inhabitants in the village; during the massacre, Momčilo Gavrić's father, mother, three sisters, four of his seven brothers, and grandmother, in addition to many people from the village, were brutally tortured, maimed, and hanged by ethnic "Swabian" Croat Austro-Hungarian soldiers belonging to the Croatian 42nd Home Guard Infantry Division (also nicknamed the "Devil's Division"), who commited the massacres in the village while reportedly drunk and intoxicated. In addition to the massacring many of the inhabitants of the village, the Austro-Hungarian troops also arrested and deported eight men from the village of Trbušnica and sent them across the border to Sarajevo in Austria-Hungary where they were held in internment camps, including – according to some sources – one of Momčilo Gavrić's own relatives.

Eight-year-old Momčilo Gavrić solely managed to survive the massacre of his family and village, because he was not in the village when the massacre took place – just several hours before the Austro-Hungarian soldiers entered the village and commited the massacre, his father had sent his son Momčilo to his paternal uncle Vladimir who lived in another village to borrow a cart, a rug, some food and water, among other supplies, so that he could escape with his family after Austro-Hungarian troops were approaching and heading towards the direction of the village and the neighboring areas and especially after he heard the local rumors from people in neighboring villages that Austro-Hungarian soldiers were killing Serbian civilians and destroying houses and villages in the nearby Mačva and the Pocerina regions of Serbia under their occupation; when Momčilo Gavrić later returned to his village and home after failing to get the cart, rug, and other supplies from his uncle, he discovered and saw the brutal scene of the massacre in his village; he saw the mutilated body of his father hanging from a tree, and the brutally mutilated bodies of his mother, four of his brothers (from 16-year-old Dragoljub to 3-year-old Millovoje), his three sisters, and his grandmother covered entirely in blood (with even their eyeballs and ears torn out), and laying in his yard, as well as the mutilated bodies of many other people in the village; many houses in the village were set on fire, including his own house. Momčilo Gavrić then discretely saw that the Croatian Austro-Hungarian soldiers who commited the brutal massacre and killed his family and many of the people in his village, were loitering and drinking strong rakija and/or senluče in his family's kačar and farm. 

Left without a family or a house, and completely stunned and horrified, Momčilo Gavrić quickly fled the village and ran around two to three miles south of his village by following the goat tracks to the mountain Gučevo where a unit of the Royal Serbian Army was stationed there. Upon arriving in the mountain Gučevo, Momčilo Gavrić found the unit and was discovered and rescued by the Royal Serbian Army soldiers belonging to the 6th Artillery Regiment of the Drina Division. Momčilo Gavrić told the soldiers and their commander Major Stevan Tucović (1882–1933), the younger brother of Serbian socialist and politician Dimitrije Tucović (1881–1914), of the situation and the brutal massacre that the "Swabians" [Austro-Hungarian soldiers] commited against his family and his village, and – upon hearing of the massacre – almost all of the soldiers in the 6th Artillery Regiment demanded of their Major Stevan Tucović for permission for them to attack and defeat the Austro-Hungarian soldiers in Momčilo's village to avenge the boy's family and also for Momčilo Gavrić to join their unit, but – according to some sources – he stood firm and refused to allow them to attack the enemy soldiers in Trubšnica; because the Serbian Drina Division were assigned to fight the Austro-Hungarian troops in the Cer Region, the soldiers in the division could not disobey the orders of the chief of the Royal Serbian Army and detour their route and attack elsewhere, just for a act of simple revenge; but Major Stevan Tucović, who was angered and saddened of the tragedy the boy experienced and felt great pity and sorrow for him, reluclantly agreed to assign Momčilo Gavrić into his unit and recruited him as a soldier the same day, and assigned, Miloš Mišović, a tall Serbian battery scout from Zlatibor serving in his unit, to be Momčilo Gavrić's caretaker and also reluctantly agreed to let the eight-year-old Momčilo Gavrić and his caretaker Miloš Mišović to go back to the village Trbušnica and secretly launch a solo surprise attack at the Austro-Hungarian soldiers stationed there. 

According to Momčilo Gavrić in his documentary and later his son Branislav Gavrić, the same evening, upon the orders of Major Stevan Tucović, Momčilo Gavrić took revenge by leading his caretaker Miloš Mišovic, through the forest and showing him where the Austro-Hungarian soldiers stationed themselves in his village, while Major Stevan Tucović and the rest of his soldiers in his unit waited at their base near the Gučevo mountain, for a report. Upon arriving in the village, Miloš Mišović launched the surprise attack at the Austro-Hungarian soldiers and threw two bombs at the base where the Austro-Hungarian stationed themselves and were drinking, while Momčilo Gavrić watched from behind; the largely undisciplined and unprepared Swabian Croat Austro-Hungarian soldiers, who were visibly drunk, intoxicated, and completely unaware of the situation and attack, were not able to fight back against the bombardment, and, almost immediately, were all killed and defeated. After completing their attack, Momčilo Gavrić and Miloš Misović quickly left the village and returned back to their base near the mountain Gučevo, in the early morning hours at dawn, and Momčilo Gavrić and Miloš Misović were both immediately applauded by the soldiers of the 6th Artillery Regiment and their Major Steven Tucović, upon their arrival. Major Stevan Tucović assigned Momčilo Gavrić to be a courier in his unit at first; although, Momčilo Gavrić insisted that he be allowed to fight and pull the firing cord of the cannons during combat; Major Stevan Tucović reluctantly agreed to let Momčilo Gavrić do so and ultimately ordered the soldiers in his unit to allow Momčilo Gavrić to regularly fire from the cannon three times a day, to avenge the brutal massacres of his family and village. Momčilo Gavrić was praised and respected by the soldiers in his unit, for his courage and willingness to serve his country as a true patriot. Major Stevan Tucović and other commanders of the Royal Serbian Army who personally met Momčilo Gavrić even described the young boy as "extremely brave and fearless during combat, despite his young age".

In late August 1914, after the Serbian Army defeated the Austro-Hungarian Army at the Battle of Cer and liberated the western areas of Serbia and drove out all of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers from Serbia, thus ending the first invasion, Momčilo Gavrić was promoted and given the military rank of a corporal by Major Stevan Tucović, and Momčilo Gavrić was also given a military uniform for the first time, after Momčilo Gavrić bravely fired from a cannon during the end of the battle of Cer and killed several Austro-Hungarian soldiers near their military base, when every Royal Serbian Army soldier around Momčilo was killed. Major Stevan Tucović was stunned when a child appeared on the report (he recognized the child as Momčilo Gavrić), after he asked which one of his soldiers fired from the cannon (since everyone on the battlefield was killed) and killed the enemy soldiers. When Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia again on 7 September 1914 and reoccupied large parts of Serbia, Serbia was again under their threat; Momčilo Gavrić participated with his unit at the Battle of the Drina River and later the Battle of Kolabura, both of which were won by the Royal Serbian Army who defeated the Austro-Hungarian Army there; when the Sixth Artillery Regiment of the Drina Division captured Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war during these battles, Major Stevan Tucović decided to allow the eight-year-old Momčilo Gavrić to stand guard and supervise the Austro-Hungarian prisoners-of-war captured by his regiment. 

Later, a brutal typhus and relapsing fever epidemic broke out in Serbia in February 1915 and lasted for more than 4 months, further severely affecting and destroying Serbia and killing more than 230,000 people there, including not only civilians but also those in the Royal Serbian Army and those in Momčilo Gavrić's division; Momčilo Gavrić himself got sick from typhus and almost died, but managed to slowly recover from his illness and ultimately survive. 

Subsequently, in November 1915, Germany and the Tsardom of Bulgaria also invaded and attacked Serbia and helped the Austro-Hungarian Army in invading Serbia; Serbia and the Royal Serbian Army were surrounded, attacked, and greatly outnumbered by their enemies, and their front had quickly collapsed; the Royal Serbian Army were subsequently forced to escape Serbia and even mainland Europe altogether and, from December 1915 to February 1916, they fled mostly on foot through the mountains of Albania amidst severely harsh blizzards and a extremely harsh winter, in what became known as the Great Serbian Retreat (also known as the Albanian Golgotha) to reach the shores of Albania and the Mediterranean Sea; however, the Drina Division was given the orders to defend the Ibar Gorge river valleys from the Bulgarian Army and therefore they did not retreat with the other divisions of the Royal Serbian Army immediately; when the Drina Division was subsequently surrounded and fiercely attacked by the Bulgarian Army there, they were ultimately forced to leave and quickly escape from the Ibar Gorge river valleys and retreat as well; Momčilo Gavrić and his unit crossed the brutal and steep Žljeb mountain with the Drina Division, amidst a harsh blizzard of which they barely were able to survive, so that they could leave Serbia and reach the Kingdom of Montenegro after crossing the border; when the Drina Division arrived in Montenegro and made a temporary stop in Podgorica, the capital city of Montenegro, Momčilo Gavrić's caretaker Miloš Mišović bought a wreath of 20 fish from a local shop and gave it to Momčilo Gavrić, and told him that their division would soon reach the brutal and steep mountains of Albania and meet up and regroup with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army there and that if Momčilo wanted to survive the brutal hike across the mountains, he should eat only fish per day, to which Momčilo Gavrić carefully listened and obeyed; the Drina Division met up with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army in the mountains of Albania and started yet another brutal hike and retreat there; Momčilo Gavrić, then nine years old, spend more than four weeks walking (alongside the rest of the Royal Serbian Army) amidst the harsh blizzards through the brutal and steep mountains of Albania without proper supplies or even enough food and in a long and exhausting hike, during which many of them froze to death, died from hunger or a lack of proper supplies, or simply commited suicide; during the brutal retreat across the mountains, his caretaker Miloš Mišović (who saved most of his food for the nine-year-old Momčilo Gavrić) felt completely exhausted and weak, and collapsed on the path and told Momčilo Gavrić to continue walking with the other soldiers and commanders of the division without him; however, Momčilo Gavrić refused to leave his caretaker and he reportedly told him that he would not leave him and would die on the mountain with him, if he must do so; hearing his words, Miloš Mišović got up and reluctantly agreed to finish the brutal and torturous walk on the mountains to the city of Durrës in Albania alongside him; upon reaching Durrës, Momčilo Gavrić, his unit along with the Drina Division, and the rest of the Royal Serbian Army boarded the ships in the port of the city and they went to the island of Korfu in Greece, where they spend several months recovering from their brutal retreat across the mountains; upon reaching the Greek island of Korfu, Momčilo Gavrić was awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat for his participation in retreating with surviving soldiers and commanders of the Royal Serbian Army across the mountains of Albania amidst the blizzards and the harsh winter, during which many soldiers and commanders lost their lives. 

Momčilo Gavrić met the chief of the Royal Serbian Army, who was reportedly stunned when he learned that a nine-year-old boy was a soldier in the Royal Serbian Army and that the boy participated in the Great Serbian Retreat and walked across the mountains of Albania with the Royal Serbian Army; Momčilo Gavrić was also taught how to read and write by a military teacher there. Later, after leaving the Greek island of Korfu and arriving in mainland Greece, ten-year-old Momčilo Gavrić and the soldiers and commanders of the Drina Division were transferred to Thessaloniki, Greece, to help the Greek Army there. Because Major Stevan Tucović felt that Momčilo Gavrić should get some formal education, he gave Momčilo Gavrić a brief leave of absence from his military service and had Momčilo sent to the old Greek city of Sorovits to study at the primary school there, as a external student. After ten-year-old Momčilo Gavrić hastily went through four grades at his primary school in just a few months in 1916, Momčilo Gavrić ultimately left the school and he had a returned back to the 6th Artillery Regiment of the Drina Division of the Royal Serbian Army, where he resumed his military service, because his sole caretakers were soldiers in the 6th Artillery Regiment. 

In September 1916, Momčilo Gavrić and the Drina Division were transferred with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army to Kajmakčalan, where they fought at the Battle of Kajmakčalan against Bulgaria. In the Battle of Kajmakčalan, the Serbian Field Marshal Živojin Mišić was stunned when he discovered and saw a ten-year-old boy (who was Momčilo Gavrić) wearing a military uniform was in the trenches, and asked Major Stevan Tucović what was the boy doing in his regiment in the trenches of Kajmakčalan. Major Stevan Tucović explained the situation to the Field Marshal Živojin Mišić; the ten-year-old boy Momčilo Gavrić was a corporal in the army, and a orphan whose family and many others in his village were brutally massacred by Austro-Hungarian troops and his house was plundered and burned down, and he was with the Royal Serbian Army since even before the Battle of Cer, and that he even participated in the Great Serbian Retreat and even walked across the mountains of Albania with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army. After hearing about the boy's accomplishments in the army and the fact that his family and village were brutally massacred by the Austro-Hungarian soldiers, Field Marshal Živojin Mišić ordeded Major Stevan Tucović to promote Momčilo Gavrić and give him the high military rank of a lance sergeant in the Royal Serbian Army; Momčilo's promotion and accomplishements were read out to the all divisions of the Royal Serbian Army, on the order of Field Marshal Živojin Mišić. Momčilo Gavrić was severely wounded during the Battle of Kajmakčalan and almost died there; after recovery, he resumed his military service in the Royal Serbian Army. Eventually, after the Serbian Army won the 18-day Battle of Kajmakčalan and defeated Bulgaria there, the Royal Serbian Army was ultimately able to return back to Serbia and defend their people and nation again; Momčilo Gavrić and the soldiers and commanders of the Drina Division re-entered Serbia, but subsequently not long afterwards they had to march on yet another long and brutal hike entirely on foot back to the Sava River and later further back to Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia, where upon arrival, Momčilo Gavrić was given a tour of the city and was even said to have reportedly been given a knife and a watch by German-Swiss professor Archibald Reiss, who was commissioned by the government of Serbia to investigate mass atrocities and massacres of Serbian civilians commited by the Austro-Hungarian Army during the war. 

In 1918, the last year of World War I, Momčilo Gavrić, then twelve years old, and the Royal Serbian Army were subsequently transfered to Slovenia where they defended the Slovenian Army – who were considered by Serbia as their brothers – and fought against Italy there at the Battle of Karavanke, where they won and defeated the Italian Army and drove the Italian Army out of Slovenia, and where Momčilo Gavrić was severely wounded in the arm and was honorably discharged from military service as a lance corporal with military honors and with the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat in the Royal Serbian Army; he was subsequently transferred to a hospital in Belgrade to recover there.

### After World War I 
Serbia became part of the newly-formed Kingdom of Yugoslavia on 21 December 1918, slightly more than one month after World War I had officialy ended. Now that the World War I had ended, Major Stevan Tucović made sure that the severely wounded twelve-year-old Momčilo Gavrić would recieve aid from a British mission that was helping orphaned children of the First World War in Serbia. After recovering from his severely wounded arm, Momčilo Gavrić was then sent to the United Kingdom, where he studied at the Henry Wreight Grammar School in Faversham, Kent, and also studied and learned English and French, for three years. 
After Momčilo Gavrić graduated from the school in 1921, at the age of 15, he returned back to Yugoslavia the same year, after the Serbian Prime Minister Nikola Pašić ordered the return of all Serbian-born children to Yugoslavia. When Momčilo Gavrić and all the other Serbian-born children returned back to Yugoslavia and arrived in Belgrade, they were stunned to discover that instead of being given comfort by government officials, they were met in at the train station in Belgrade, which became the capital city of Yugoslavia, with Yugoslav gendarmes and soldiers carrying rifles, with the task and order of sending the Serbian children back to the towns they came from. 
After Momčilo Gavrić returned back to Trbušnica, his village, Momčilo met and was reunited with his two older surviving brothers Bogozav and Svetozar Gavrić there, former soldiers of the Royal Serbian Army who, during the war, were surrounded and captured along with their entire unit by the Austro-Hungarian Army during a fierce battle and they were imprisoned in prisoners-of-war camps in Austria-Hungary and later in the German Empire until the end of the war in 1918; brothers Bogozav and Svetozar Gavrić returned back to Serbia and went back to their village, Trubšnica, hoping to reunite with their family there, only for them to hear and learn the tragic news there that their family and many others in their village were murdered in a brutal massacre by the Austro-Hungarian Army in August 1914, and their house was burned down; without a family and house, the brothers subsequently fell into extreme poverty and temporarily became homeless; Momčilo's elder brother Bogozav Gavrić, who was a skilled carpenter, was able to built a house for himself in his village, Trbušnica, on the ruins where his family's house once stood before the war, and his brother Svetozar Gavrić eventually left the pair and went to live in Banja Koviljača, a nearby town, presumably to find his sister and her husband who lived there at the start of the war. 

Momčilo Gavrić stayed with his elder brother Bogozav Gavrić for a brief while in their village, Trubšnica, and Momčilo helped his brother Bogozav as best as he could, but he eventually left his brother Bogozav at some point and decided to start his own life elsewhere. Momčilo Gavrić went to live in Sabač and later in Belgrade, and he survived by taking many odd jobs to support himself over several years, including as a housekeeper, a gardener, a waiter, a depo worker, and a chauffeur driver for a wealthy family, among other odd jobs.

In 1929, at the age of 23, after reaching the age of military conscription in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, because of lost documentation, Momčilo Gavrić was given a notice of military conscription into the Royal Yugoslav Army. When he went to the military barracks in Slavonska Požega to report to the commander there, Momčilo Gavrić explained to the commander that he already served in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War as a child, and that he was wounded during his military service, and that he was even awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat for his participation in the Great Serbian Retreat across the mountains of Albania amidst severe blizzards, in which many soldiers and commanders of the Royal Serbian Army lost their lives and that he endured a lot of hardship and pain; therefore, Momčilo Gavrić asked the commander to relieve him from the mandatory military service but he told the commander that he did not have any military documents to prove that he was a soldier in the Royal  Serbian Army during the First World War and that he did not know what happened to all of his documents; however, the commander, who was a ethnic Croat and a former Austro-Hungarian army officer himself, got furious and ordered that Momčilo Gavrić sign a confession stating that he lied and did not serve in the army during World War I; Momčilo Gavrić refused to sign the confession and subsequently lie, and was arrested by the police and sentenced to prison for two and a half months. After he left prison and completed yet another period of military service, Momčilo Gavrić returned back to Belgrade and completed his graphic design and his driver's training. 

In 1932, Major Stevan Tucović, who was suffering from a chronic illness, travelled to Belgrade and made attempts to locate the current whereabouts of Momčilo Gavrić there; Momčilo Gavrić was able to meet with his commander Major Stevan Tucović once again and had a joyous reunion with him. Major Stevan Tucović died from his chronic illness, on 27 January 1933, at the mere, young age of 50.

Later, Momčilo Gavrić worked in a paper mill where he met a woman named Kosara Ilić, who was originally from the town of Mladerovac (now a district of Belgrade); he married Kosara Ilić in 1939, with whom he would have two sons named Branislav Gavrić (born in 1940) and Aleksandar Gavrić (born in 1945).

### World War II 
After World War II began in 1939, Momčilo Gavrić was again conscripted and recruited into the Royal Yugoslav Army in Kolašin (today in Montenegro), for a third time. In April 1941, Yugoslavia was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and Momčilo Gavrić, at the age of 34, fought in the Royal Yugoslav Army, but he saw that his army was completely disintegrating and with outdated ammunition and that it surrendered to the Axis powers in just 12 days; after Yugoslavia was totally carved up by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, the soldiers were captured by the German Army and rounded up on a truck and taken as prisoners-of-war, but Momčilo Gavrić managed to escape capture by jumping and running out of the truck transporting the prisoners-of-war and hiding during daytime and walking on foot back to Belgrade at night; he subsequently returned back to Belgrade after several days of walking entirely on foot. 

With the assistance and help of his wife Kosara Gavrić and his friends, Momčilo Gavrić worked under disguise in the paper mill in Belgrade as the assistant for a Serbian Jewish man, who was not murdered by the Germans, because he was a skilled worker and the Germans needed him as a expert. Momčilo Gavrić and the Serbian Jewish man (whom he worked for) were both ultimately denounced to the German authorities, and were arrested by the Germans in Belgrade and was deported to the Banjica concentration camp, where the Serbian Jewish man was presumed to have been murdered by the German officers, and where Momčilo Gavrić was imprisoned for several months; during his time in the camp, Momčilo Gavrić was harshly interrogated and tortured by the German officers there, on a almost repeated basis. Eventually, Momčilo Gavrić showed his files from the paper mill to the German officers; Momčilo Gavrić was eventually released from the concentration camp by the Germans, and it is even speculated and theorized that he was released thanks to the infamous chief Drago Jovanović; however, Momčilo Gavrić was later again denounced to the German authorities and was sent back to the concentration camp, but this time the concentration camp was attacked by the Yugoslav partisans and the prisoners, including Momčilo Gavrić, were broken out of the camp by the partisans; Momčilo Gavrić subsequently returned back to his wife and son in Belgrade and returned back to his work at the paper mill there. 

Yugoslavia was ultimately liberated from German occupation by the communist Yugoslav partisans in 1944 and 1945; when the Yugoslav partisans liberated Belgrade in October 1944, Momčilo Gavrić waved the Yugoslav flag in front of the partisans with joy and happiness; however, the paper mill was raided by the Yugoslav partisans after a unknown individual falsely accused sixteen of it's workers – including Momčilo Gavrić – of collaborating with the German officers during the German occupation of Yugoslavia, and 16 of the workers from the paper mill – including Momčilo Gavrić – were arrested by the partisans and were lined up to be executed by the partisans by a firing squad; however, a Serbian man from Skopje (today the capital city of North Macedonia) had recognized Momčilo Gavrić as a companion to whom he gave "secret documents" during the German occupation, and Momčilo Gavrić was let go by the partisans and spared from execution, while the other 15 workers from the paper mill were executed by the Yugoslav partisans right on the spot.

### After World War II 
After the end of the war in 1945, Yugoslavia became a communist state ruled by the League of Communists of Yugoslavia. In 1947, Momčilo Gavrić, at the age of 41, was arrested and imprisoned by the Yugoslav Communist OZNA authorities when they came to the apartment building in Belgrade he lived in with his family and asked for a donation for him for the "brotherly" people in Albania, after he claimed that "Albanians are no brothers to Serbs" and saying that he "felt their brotherhood of the Albanians when they were killing us [the Serbs] in 1915", during a time when the communist president of Yugoslavia (Josip Broz Tito), and the communist president of Albania (Enver Hoxha) were strong allies and great friends. As a result, after he was arrested, Momčilo Gavrić was labeled "as a enemy of the people" and subsequently sentenced for 1 year and a half in prison, where he was imprisoned under harsh conditions and even brutally tortured in the prison by the Communist guards on a almost repeated basis, to the point where he was unable to speak and even became temporarily mentally disabled. After Momčilo Gavrić was released, he returned back to his wife and sons, where he deeply struggled but managed to slowly recover back to health, both mentally and physically, but soon Momčilo had to face another tragedy; his wife Kosara died in 1949, just several months after his release from the prison. For several years, Momčilo Gavrić was reported by his children to have been mentally disabled, psychologically traumatized, socially withdrawn, and unable to fully speak, and it took Momčilo several years for him to slowly recover back to health and recover from his mental disabilities. According to his sons, Momčilo Gavrić never told his family where he was imprisoned after he was arrested, or how brutally he was beaten and/or tortured by the Communist guards there and kept it a secret his whole life until his death. 
After his first wife Kosara Gavrić had died in 1949, Momčilo Gavrić remarried and eventually he had two more wives during his lifetime, with one of whom he would have a daughter. 

In 1962, Svetislav Cirić, who served as a lieutenant in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War and personally met Momčilo Gavrić when he was a child soldier in the army, and who had made long-time unsuccessful attempts to locate and meet Momčilo Gavrić again after the First and Second World Wars, had published a article in the newspaper "Politika" asking about the current whereabouts of Momčilo Gavrić, the youngest soldier in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War. Thanks to his article, Svetislav Cirić met and reunited with Momčilo Gavrić again, more than 50 years after the First World War had ended, and gave him all of Momčilo Gavrić's military documents and his award certificate of being awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat from World War I that Momčilo Gavrić had lost. In addition, Svetislav Cirić had also given Momčilo Gavrić a pension containing all the money that Momčilo had earned for his military service and participation in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War.

In 1983, Momčilo Gavrić was invited to the Jadar Museum in Loznica to see a monument built in his honor, in memory of his service as a child soldier in the Royal Serbian Army during World War I.

When the benefactor Lady Paget heard about Momčilo Gavrić and his accomplishments during the war, she called Momčilo Gavrić "the great Serbian knight", and the Greek people erected and dedicated a gold monument to Momčilo Gavrić, the youngest soldier of World War I, on the island of Korfu where Momčilo temporarily stayed with the rest of the Royal Serbian Army in 1916. When the president of France, Francois Mitterand visited Yugoslavia in 1985, he went to Belgrade to personally visit Momčilo Gavrić himself and even awarded him the Order, and General Lepardieu told Momčilo Gavrić that "it is a shame you weren't a French soldier, you would have a monument on the Champs-Elysées [the world-renowned and famous street in Paris, the capital city of France]". 

In 1987, Momčilo Gavrić, at the age of 81, participated in a Yugoslav documentary film where he discussed his experiences as a orphaned child soldier in the Royal Serbian Army during the First World War, whose family and village were brutally massacred by the Austro-Hungarian soldiers in August 1914.

Momčilo Gavrić died in Belgrade on , at the old age of 86, just days prior to his 87th birthday; Momčilo Gavrić is survived by his two sons Branislav and Aleksandar Gavrić, his only daughter, his grandchildren including Ana Gavrić, Željko Tadić, and Ana Vukmanović, and his great-grandchildren including Vuk Vukmanović.

## Legacy 
Momčilo Gavrić was awarded the Commemorative Medal of the Great Serbian Retreat, as a reward for his courage and participation in the Great Serbian Retreat with the Royal Serbian Army, across the mountains of Albania.
There are memorials dedicated to Momčilo Gavrić in the island of Korfu in Greece, and in the Jadar Museum in Loznica, Serbia.In 1985, the president of France, Francois Mitterand with General Lepardieu personally visited and awarded Momčilo Gavrić the Order, during their visit to Yugoslavia that same year. A street in the Stepa Stepanović neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia, was posthoumously named after Momčilo Gavrić.
In 2014, a street in the city of Loznica was named after Momčilo Gavrić. On 2 April 2015, the Serbian government publicly announced their decision to built a monument of Momčilo Gavrić in Belgrade, the capital city of Serbia.

## Gallery 
## Related pages 
* World War I
* Serbia during World War I
* Serbian campaign (1914)
* Battle of Cer
* Children in the military
* Sergei Aleshkov
* Xiàng Xuān
* Boško Buha

## References