He knew six languages and wore an English uniform when he became a soldier of the Fifth Proletarian Montenegrin Brigade.
He entered the Second World War at the age of 16, and the thorny path of the beardless young man led from North Africa and the Middle East, through Italy and Montenegro, to Slovenia and the Walled Bridge. He was burned by the hot sun of the Sahara and cold by the merciless winter of Kolasin and Sarajevo.
The story is that he ate cookies prepared in honor of Ante Pavelić and, due to a sniper's mistake, avoided certain death...
But Đorđe Stanović (96), who today lives in his native Bratica near Ulcinj, won the battle and emerged from the war as a winner with his forehead held high, because, as he says, he was on the right side from the beginning.
And everything indicated that the life of the five-year-old boy, who moved with his parents from Ulcinj to Alexandria in 1930, would take a different course.
"My father enrolled me in a French-English school. He harbored great ambitions for me because even then, due to my neighbors from Italy, I knew the Italian language well. The war ruined everything," says Stanović as we sit on the terrace of his house in picturesque Bratica.
He knew, as he says, that fate had destined him for a different role in life, when the Yugoslav submarine "Nebojša" and the torpedo boats "Kajmakčalan" and "Durmitor" sailed into the Egyptian port.
Stanović, like all Yugoslavs in Alexandria, was then a member of the Yugoslav House.
"One of the commanders gave a terribly emotional speech. He recalled the history and how during all the previous wars, Montenegro was defended by its sons from abroad. He invited us to establish a battalion of Yugoslav volunteers. At the same moment, I told my father that I was going to leave home", the old man remembers how it all started and how the father, following the example of his own life, calmly accepted his son's decision.
A battalion of about 800 volunteers was formed with the English army stationed in Alexandria. Đorđe borrowed an English uniform, a helmet and a machine gun. That's how it started.
The training lasted two months, and then you had to look the enemy in the eye. However, the English, on the recommendation of Tito's associates, did not send the battalion members to the front lines - Đorđe and his comrades were in charge of food. "We were told that we will be needed by the homeland when we are released," says Đorđe.
Despite this, everyone knew what was happening in the front lines.
"It was that German general Rommel. Everyone was afraid of him, they said that he was a war genius", remembers Đorđe.
Everyone was talking about how the German outsmarted the English generals and beat Churchill's army to the ground in a bay, in neighboring Libya. The bay was several hundred meters wide and in it there were perfectly camouflaged guns and tanks on the left and right, while the middle was clear.
Đorđe says that it was known exactly which of the German soldiers was going to the tank and who was going to the cannon. And while the English were attacking, the Germans were consciously retreating.
"There were no German soldiers at all and that was strange to the English generals. They sent planes to scout, but the pilots reported that they saw nothing suspicious. Meanwhile, Rommel had drawn the English into the bay. "In two hours, all English combat vehicles and tanks were destroyed, along with a large number of dead soldiers," Đorđe remembers.
A few months later, the English General Montgomery will defeat Rommel at El Alamein and mark the beginning of the end of the German occupation in North Africa. "There were many dead German soldiers. The citizens were given the task of burying them, but it was hasty and shallow. The wind "Hamsin", which blows 50 times a year, later lifted the sand from the corpses. That's how cholera arrived in Egypt"... The whirlwind of war took George through Sudan, Haifa and Israel to Palestine, where he became a telegraph operator in 1942. There, a year and a half later, there was an upheaval after the agreement between Tito and Subašić.
Yugoslav volunteers were offered three options - to join the partisans, to demobilize, or to stay in the base that was close to Draza Mihajlović. "Among our compatriots, only I and a certain Masoničić, I think from Crmnica, agreed to join the Partisans.
The others asked for demobilization, saying that they did not want to go to a fratricidal war," Đorđe tells how his return to his homeland began. The fighters were sent by express ship to a place in Italy, which was a refuge for the partisans, and then to Dubrovnik, and from there by truck to Nikšić. Đorđe was immediately invited for an interview - a perfect English uniform on a man from Ulcinj who speaks French, English, Italian, Greek, Arabic and Albanian fluently.
"It was like something suspicious to them. The man who was interrogating me said that he was an ordinary soldier and that he wanted to hear my biography. At that moment, a soldier entered the office and saluted: 'Comrade President, I have completed the task'. I told him afterwards that he was suspicious of me from the beginning. He just laughed, and his, as I later found out, was the last one to be judged," says Đorđe.
The next day, they sent him, a captain, four lieutenants and a second lieutenant in the uniforms of old Yugoslavia to find and join the Fifth Proletarian. The story goes that they walked to Podgorica and spent the night there with a host. "Then the allies bombed Podgorica, and before dawn a strong explosion rang out. The host ran to us and said that the Germans had demolished the Vizier's bridge as a result of the deviation," says the old man and says that immediately after that they continued the search for the brigade.
They found her after three days in Bara Kraljski.
"Kolašin should have been released. As there was no radio station, the company commissar told me to join the other fighters. I don't remember such coldness, I froze," Đorđe remembers.
The story goes that after Kolašin, the brigade set out to liberate Bosnia via Sandžak. The battles around Trnovo and Sarajevo were memorable for him.
"We had a warehouse full of sugar and flour. The Germans found out about it, killed the accompanying company and took everyone to the city to make cakes in the bakeries in honor of Pavelić's birthday. We reacted quickly and attacked them the very next morning and forced them to retreat. So we all ate cookies meant to celebrate Pavelić's birthday", says Đorđe, who got a radio station in those days and started working at the headquarters, with a smile.
He says that he always fondly remembers a grandmother who came every day to warm his hands while he worked.
"I will never forget those warm hands, that blissful smile and eyes". The brigade advanced, leaving behind freedom for the people, and there was no compromise with the enemy.
"In Karlovac, we encountered five captured Germans. They were summarily shot. It was the same with two Croats and one German, who came to us and said they wanted to fight with us. The commissioner took off the cap of one of the Croats and saw the big letter 'U' inside."
The brigade had to move on, its task was to help the army tighten the ring at the Brick Bridge.
“It was May, the ninth. I try to turn on the station - I hear a song, I try again - the song again. On one occasion, I heard that Germany had capitulated, but we are still fighting at the bridge, we have dead people," Đorđe remembers.
It is said that it was only on May 14 that the general of the German army with a white flag came to the command, saluted and handed over a belt with a gun.
"He surrendered to our hero Petar Vojvodić, the commander of the seventh Montenegrin youth brigade. The next day in Zagreb, he signed the capitulation, and in addition to the German army, Pavlo Đurišić's Chetniks were also captured," says the old man.
A large number of captured Germans and Chetniks, as Đorđe says, spent the next three years working on the reconstruction of the destroyed country.
After the war, Đorđe returned to his hometown. He worked in Ulcinj and Barski srez as a clerk for communal affairs. He got married at the age of 57 and had three children, of whom he also has grandchildren.
Today he is retired. Although he was offered it on several occasions, he was never a member of the Communist League or any other party. "After the war, when they asked me why I wouldn't, I said that if I joined the party, I would lose my freedom. And I fought for freedom, didn't I".
Partisan girl sings, and her legs are blown off by a mine
The Germans, retreating from Croatia, left behind snipers whose task was to eliminate officers and radio operators, Đorđe says.
He says that he narrowly escaped death because his colleague was killed by a sniper's bullet intended for him.
"We carried the radio station on a horse. On one side was the station, and on the other was the roller that provided electricity. "A friend who tried to turn the roller, just half a meter from me, fell as if mowed down", says Đorđe.
After that, the commissar decided to temporarily hide him and the radio station in a shelter for the wounded.
While he was at the station one morning, he heard a girl's voice singing 'Oh my life... nothing is equal to you'. She was a partisan - who helped the wounded in battle. She stepped on a landmine...
"I urgently reported that help was necessary. They brought the girl inside, she was without legs, she was looking at all of us and singing. Not one moan, not one tear. We were silent, we didn't know what to say to her. Help arrived quickly, they took her to the hospital. One of the wounded said: 'What fools we are, we didn't even ask her name'. I said I know her name - Junakinja, Junakinja is her name," Đorđe told probably the saddest story of his five-year war.
The evil fate of the captured Italian
While he was in Tel Aviv, Đorđe says that an English officer brought him letters that were to be distributed to the prisoners. He knew that Đorđe knew languages and told him to read them carefully and to report if anything was suspicious.
"In one letter, the wife of a captured Italian wrote that 'I have become a widow and my children are orphans.' She begged God to protect her husband. But when the duty officer was handing out the letters, an Italian answered and went to take them. From the second tent, where the soldiers were cleaning their weapons, a volley rang out and the Italian fell down. He didn't even take the letter and his wife actually became a widow," says Đorđe.
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