Milana “Mim” Karlo Bizic’s dedication to her heritage is evident the minute you step into her home.
The love and appreciation of the history of Serbia are prominent. A library full of books and magazines and other memorabilia connects her to her Serbian ancestors. In her office, one of her most prized possessions is a framed image of Draza Mihailovic, general of the Royal Yugoslav Army.
As Bizic looked at the photo of Mihailovic, which used to be displayed in her grandmother Andja Mamula’s dining room, Bizic recalled a story her father, Milan Karlo (Karajlovich), told her about the rescue of 500 Allied personnel, including hundreds of U.S. airmen, during World War II in Serbia.
“This mission was covered up for decades,” Bizic said from her living room at Masonic Village at Sewickley.
Mihailovic led Mission Halyard, the largest rescue from behind enemy lines during World War II. They landed in a cornfield that had taken days to clear.
Her father printed word for word from a diary of OSS Captain Nick Lalich of the mission that began on Aug. 3, 1944, and ended on Dec. 27 of that year. Not many people knew about the mission, Bizic said.
“Draza is an inspiration because of what he did,” Bizic said. “He saved those airmen. It took courage to do what he did.”
Bizic wanted to recognize that courage by observing the 80th anniversary of Mission Halyard in Serbia in September.
“Most of the heroes of this mission were from the Greater Pittsburgh area and great friends of my dad and me,” said Bizic, who with her son Nick and her cousins, Paul and Kathy Belosh and Dennis Astorino, attended a Sept. 21 ceremony on the field in Pranjani, Serbia, where those soldiers landed eight decades ago.
The airmen were found, rescued, housed, fed and defended by the Serbian villagers in the mountains, under the leadership of Mihailovic.
“They did this at great risk to themselves and their families,” Bizic said.“Participating in that ceremony gave me chills. We were all proud to have walked in the footsteps of these Serbian giants.”
During her latest trip to Serbia, Bizic found some paternal relatives whom she had not been heard from in decades. She visited the Carnegie Library of Belgrade, one of three libraries Andrew Carnegie built outside the U.S. There, she saw a preview of new stamps issued by the government commemorating the rescue. She knew three men displayed on the stamps — Nick Lalich, George Musulin and George Vujnovich.
Bizic brought her American/Serbian flag to the royal palace, where she was invited and met the heir to the throne, Prince Philip, who was truly a prince charming, she said. He signed her flag just like his father, Aleksandar, did in 1989 on a trip to the U.S. in Detroit, Mich., for the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo.
Bizic’s parents and grandparents always appreciated the royal family. Her mother, Laura Mamula Karlo, started the first King Peter II club in Pittsburgh at the age of 16. The crest of Serbia on an embroidered piece of folk art is displayed prominently on a wall in Bizic’s living room.
Bizic, 83, is often called “an unofficial ambassador of Serbia,” she said. She was honored with the Despot Stefan Lazarevich award from Patriarch Porfirije of Serbia, the highest education award in Serbia. It was presented in Downtown Pittsburgh during a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Serbian Orthodox Church in America.
Even though Bizic is retired, she continues to embrace education.
She grew up on Pittsburgh’s South Side, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and spent 42 years teaching, most of them in the Quaker Valley School District. Her late husband Gus, who was also Serbian and shared her love of the country, was a teacher for Pittsburgh Public Schools. Bizic is proficient with computers and taught not only the kids but also some teachers about how to use the technology.
During multiple trips to Serbia, Bizic became friends with artist Zoran Andjelkovic, first on Facebook and later in person. Two of his paintings are in her bedroom, and she said they are images she enjoys seeing when she wakes up every morning. She has another of his paintings in her entryway.
Andjelkovic is working on a 12-foot painting to be displayed in Pranjani, Serbiea, and Bizic is helping fund that project, she said. She held a picture she drew of Mihailovic during the 2020 pandemic. She took the picture to Serbia, and it has signatures from children of the men rescued during Mission Halyard, who she met on her recent trip. One of the autographs is from a man named Jon Felson, who was invited by the daughter of one of the airmen, Mike McCool, to write a movie script about the airmen’s rescue.
Bizic was not born in Serbia, and neither were her parents, but her grandparents were.
“Serbia is such a part of me,” Bizic said, “and it always will be.”
Her father, even though he was deaf from age 17, was the eyes and ears of his people, Bizic said. He earned a degree from the Rochester Institute of Photography and was editor of the Serb National Federation’s newspaper. He also started his own magazine. He wrote about the airmen rescue, which Bizic has kept.
She reads every day to stay sharp. Some of her reading includes her grandmother Andja Mamula’s diary, which has writings from the day Bizic was born on July 30 and documents her life and her Serbian heritage. Bizic recalled her father telling her of the rescue of the airmen.
“This story was covered up for years,” Bizic said. “But I knew this story because he would tell me. And I think everyone should know this story.”
Bizic documents Serbian history, travels and more at babamim.com.
