Miomir Mile Plakalovic was born in Sarajevo in 1952.
A taxi driver in Sarajevo during the war, he risked his life every day carrying those wounded and persecuted around the city, asking nothing but where they were going. For this reason, Miomir Mile Plakalovic received the Dusko Kondor Civil Courage Award in 2010, with the following motivation:
"While being aware of the risks, he demonstrated his civil courage by bravely spending every day, without exception and for 1440 days, on the streets of besieged Sarajevo, picking up those wounded and carrying them to hospitals, under fire from sniper rifles and shrapnel from hand grenades, thus saving the lives of dozens of Sarajevo's wounded fellow citizens, including many children."
In Svetlana Broz's book, The Righteous in the Time of Evil (Erickson, 2008), Serafina Lukic, a Croatian professor of language and literature, recounts her encounter with Mile. Serafina recounts that Albert Abinum, a Jewish Center member, would give her food for her family every day, which was scattered throughout the city. One day, "under sniper fire, I was running to my brother in Marijin Dvro to bring him food when I heard the screech of a car's brakes. I saw a cab in the middle of an intersection. 'Come on, get in, or we'll both die here. Where are you going?" the taxi driver asked me. Later I learned that the driver was Mile Plakalovic, a famous Serbian taxi driver who, throughout the siege, carried people up and down the city for free; he picked up those wounded from snipers and grenades on the sidewalks and took them to the hospital."
Mile, Serafina still remembers, offered her a ride every time he met her on the streets of the city, without ever asking her about her nationality. Sometimes he brought her to the bakery, where he also went to get bread to distribute around and gave her a whole loaf of warm bread. "I will never forget - Serafina concludes - the smell of the warm bread with which, during the winter, I would warm my face, running to bring food to my family members."
His biography is taken from the archive of Duško Kondor Award for Civil Courage. We would like to thank Svetlana Broz for providing the material to the editorial staff.
