Nikola Bruich    Dec. 19, 1922 - Oct. 30, 2005


If your great-grandfather would have been alive to hold you in his arms, you never would have imagined that he was once a guerrilla fighter in World War II…a man who travelled what we believed to be fearlessly  not only through the trials of the war, but throughout his life. He was a man who cherished his family beyond everything else and in the end; he was a man who died as bravely as he had lived honorably.  He was, no doubt, the most beloved character in the cast of our family.

What you would have seen, had he lived long enough to witness your birth, was the kindness in his eyes and the warmth in his touch.  He was a man who believed his word was his vow, and that his life was a testament to honor.  Never ashamed to lavish kisses and affection upon his own children, he was as capable of giving love as he was of receiving it.  A soft-spoken man of few words, boasting was not in his nature and the legend that will forever surround him is a creation of his own family and not from the man himself.   At 5’ 11” with eyes the color of Caribbean waters, he was the tallest man in our forest.

Your great-grandfather was born on a farm in Yugoslavia on December 19, 1922.  He was the oldest of nine siblings, a position that planted a sense of responsibility in his young heart and which drove him throughout his life. The family homestead was a plot of 1,500 acres accumulated through the ages from one marriage to another, one inheritance to another.  While life on the land may seem idyllic to those of us here who live on lots the size of postage stamps, working the farm was anything but easy.  Your great-great grandparents, Milan & Sava Bruich, must have worked from sun-up to sun-down planting and hoeing the crops, baking bread, making cheese, and feeding the livestock.  And as summer turned to fall, there was the harvest to contend with, storing the bounty, slaughtering and curing the meat, and preparing for the coming, cold winter months. 

Back in the late 1930’s, the Bruich clan lived a simple life where pride blossomed from self-sufficiency.  All of that changed when World War II slowly crept upon the lands of Yugoslavia as the Nazi’s plummeted through the gateway of the Balkans and the communists eroded the monarchy which had ruled for decades.

Your great-grandfather was 18 years old when he first joined the Chetniks, a band of guerrilla fighters loyal to the monarchy and the nationalism of Serbian people.  It’s hard to explain the war arena at the time because while there was a known enemy in the Nazi’s, it was harder to decipher and recognize the internal enemies in the communist movement…these were friends and neighbors who chose different sides.  All together, it was a boiling mess of humanity where yesterday’s allegiances became tomorrow’s threats.
What perhaps drove your great-grandfather towards the Chetniks was the swift and incomprehensible death of his younger brother, Pajo.  One day a group of soldiers came to the house to recruit Pajo, and just a few short days later, the same band returned to the doorstep with news of his death.  His body was never returned and the only explanations given to the shocked family were recantations of a lost battle.  The war swooped in on wings of sorrow for the Bruichs.

While he didn’t talk about it much, your great-grandfather did tell us the story of his reaction to Pajo’s death.  I remember as children how fascinated we were by his words, by his vow of revenge upon those who had harmed his beloved brother.  What he told those soldiers was, “By taking Pajo, you numbered the days of his life and now, I will be counting the days that remain of yours.”

The words were chilling and we were lost in our own, childish imaginations.  As he spoke to us of avenging the death of his brother, we began to paint our father’s portrait in glorious colors resembling the knights of old.  While many stories followed later, they were always swirled in secrecy and we never did confirm if he had indeed carried out his threat.  Perhaps it was in the telling of this very story that as children, we decided long ago that our father was noble in spirit, swift to defend, and the consummate romantic hero in the book of our lives.

To have listened to your great-grandfather speak of the war, you’d know that it wasn’t all just dismal talk about death and politics. There were fun times as well, times that began to define the young man from the youth of the farm. Once, long after he had joined the Chetnik army with many of his young friends, now his commrades in arms, he decided to play a prank on his father…publically.  In those days, growing a handlebar mustache was symbolic of wisdom and manhood. To pluck a hair from your mustache and throw it on the bargaining table was akin to signing a contract, pledging a sacred vow to deliver your end of the bargain. Well, your great-great-grandfather had worn just such a mustache for many years and he was quite proud of it, ritually combing and waxing the magnificent adornment to his face.  In fact, my father had never seen his father without his mustache and he was musing dangerously about what he would look like without it.

One night when his father was asleep in the army camp, your great-grandfather enlisted the help of some of his closest friends and off they went to steal the mustache. Carefully so as not to awaken the slumbering man, they carefully slathered one end of it and with the silky strokes of a cat, the young rebels shaved off one side of the magnificent mustache.  They quietly skittered away, all the time snickering under their breaths.  Why they didn’t shave the other side of the mustache is a mystery to all of us and the only conclusion we came up with is that the entire act was, perhaps, a demonstration of rebellion.  As is with most generations, it is not that they scorn the ways of the past, it’s just that they want to create their own, new inroads to the future.   This may have been one of the ways your great-grandfather separated himself from his own father and the ways of old.

We’ll never really know what his true intent was, but the aftermath was not a pretty sight according to your great-grandfather.  His father woke up the next morning and as was his ritual,  he yawned, stretched his limbs to the sky to get his blood flowing, and then he went to swirl the ends of his mustache. Lo and behold, there was nothing to grab onto.  As the young culprits quietly watched and laughed to themselves off to the side, the old man looked puzzled when one hand felt a mustache and the other hand came up against nothing. Very quickly the old man’s expression went from amazement to a deathly-still anger. Just as quickly, your great-grandfather stopped snickering.
Throughout that morning, and through their meager breakfast meal in the militarty camp, your great-great grandfather never acknowledged the missing half of his mustache. He went on with his business as usual, not even pausing to explain to the others who looked in bewilderment at one-half of what used to be a magnificent patch of hair.

It was only when all the soldiers lined up to begin their military assignments did he land his stroke of retaliation.  He calmly walked up to my father who stood in procession,  officially announced that his son was a scroundrel of the lowest kind, a son who stole honor from his father…and with that,  he slapped him full in the face in front of  the entire squad of men.  To have punched him would have been to have given him the honor of manood…to slap him was to punish a child that has not yet reached the wisdom of men.
 
The war continued until 1944, taking the lives of thousands of young men, women and children.  Most of those left standing, those were loyal to the monarchy, left their country on foot into the unknown corners of the universe.  While the rest of his family remained on the farm throughout their lives, your great-grandfather left home, never to return again. Transported from one refugee camp to another, he finally got the opportunity to come to America in 1951.  By the time he left the last camp in Germany at the age of 28, he was a husband and a young father.  With five dollars in his pocket and a family in tow, he stepped out of the prop plane in Idlewild New York and began the next journey of his life.