For Baka’s Homeland: Eyewitness To The Birth Of A State By Michael Palaich

While in the coming weeks I intend to write in depth about this new book by Michael Palaich, just ahead of Christmas, I wish to say that for the vast majority of people of Croatian descent, in particular, born or living outside of Croatia, this new book is as relevant to life and as warmly familiar as the bread we eat, or have eaten, every day. For others, it is a window into the world of love for one’s people and freedom from oppression – communist oppression; a love that drives one to the path of fighting for freedom; giving it all, sacrificing much of personal life and its material blessings.

This book “is a compelling eyewitness account of a third-generation Croatian-American who was first recruited into the Croatian Liberation Movement at the age of twenty-five. The author’s personal story details how the love for his Grandmother (Baka) led to his love for her people, her culture and ultimately to a desire to assist her homeland in realizing its centuries-old quest to achieve independence.

The author openly shares his personal journey from the sometimes-violent streets of Detroit to the war-torn streets of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

After Traveling across four continents, he produced a documentary on post-WWII Yugoslav war crimes titled The Bleiburg Tragedy and contributed to several other documentaries about Yugoslav war crimes. He created his own news agency and became a Registered Foreign Agent for the Republic of Croatia during the country’s War of Independence. Palaich was ultimately indicted by the US government for arms smuggling.

After more than two decades, Palaich finally reveals the full story, the historical people he met along the way and the unbelievable reason he is a free man today.”

Michael Palaich
Photo: Croatia.org

Michael Palaich, the author of the well-known documentary “Bleiburg Tragedy”,  was born in the United States of America, is a graduate of Wayne State University, Detroit Michigan, where he graduated Cum Laude with B.A. degrees in Psychology and Political Science.  He has worked as a freelance journalist and served as a correspondent during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The name of Michael (Mike) Palaich and his extensive activism on behalf of Croatian freedom has been well-known to the Croatians in America and beyond for a long time. In the 1980s, he was an eloquent spokesman for the Croatian cause in the Detroit area. At the same time, he had the vision and stamina of undertaking a major project, that of interviewing and recording eyewitnesses of the extradition of Croatian civilians and disarmed military forces by the British to Tito and his partisans in May of 1945. Most of the extradited were massacred by Tito’s communists and those who survived were taken via long and horrific routs to various labour camps located throughout the country, from Austria in the north to the borders of Greece in the south. During those marches tens of thousands more people lost their lives. In Croatian history this calamity is known as the “Bleiburg Tragedy and the Križni put/Way of the Cross”. (The extradition began near the town of Bleiburg in Austria.) The British authorities knew well what would happen to those who were forcibly handed over to the communists – certain death for most of them. Palaich’s documentaries have become an indispensable historical source for researchers of those tragic events in which hundreds of thousands of Croatians (and some others) were murdered and no one ever was charged for those horrific crimes.

Currently “For Baka’s Homeland” is available on Amazon online shops.

Ina Vukic