The first female sports journalist
There are little things that are such gems that you must never forget or lose them. It's getting harder and harder for me to do it, but sometimes I can...
Milka, like all other children who grew up during World War II, had a difficult childhood. The father, a state officer, was captured by the Ustashas and taken to Germany, where he died at the very end of the war. She also lost her sister Mara, who suffocated as a fifteen-year-old girl.
Milka was a refugee. In 1941, her family had to flee from Sarajevo. Milka had to leave her room with a view of her beloved Miljacka and the park where she happily played. The Ustashas came to them and told them that they had to leave the apartment where they were living. - They chased us away, but I always say that it wasn't the Croats. They were radical people, as unfortunately there are everywhere. We've been through a lot as a family and the only thing I don't like are nationalists. I am open to everyone. I am not of any nationality. - said Milka later.
Milka's mother fled to Montenegro with her three children. She was counting on rumors that the Italian Queen Jelena would advocate that the captured Montenegrins be moved to that country. She thought that her father would return, but, unfortunately, that did not happen. The family eventually moved to Zagreb.
Despite the war, Milka said that she had a wonderful childhood. In the period outside of her duties as the eldest child in the family, she could do whatever she wanted. She was a very diligent and responsible student. She started doing athletics in 1945 at a cross competition held in Srijemska Mitrovica. She showed a great talent that will soon determine her whole life...
Determined Milka enrolled at the Faculty of Economics in Zagreb at the age of twenty, but she did not like that faculty. She transferred to the pedagogical academy because she really loved children or "little people" as she used to call them. She graduated as a teacher with enhanced physical education and Croatian and German languages. At the same time, she was involved in athletics and was a multiple state champion of Yugoslavia and a two-time world student champion (1953 in Dortmund and 1957 in Paris). During the war, when it was almost impossible to travel, Milka, going to competitions abroad, reported on sports results. That is why it is not surprising that, at the time of the formation of the sports newsroom of Television Zagreb, she was invited by the experienced journalist Hrvoje Macanović.
After getting a job at Television Zagreb as a journalist in 1958, she continued training in athletics. - I already worked on television, and I still ran regularly. I remember when my colleague Mladen Delić and I broadcast the Yugoslav championship in athletics from Belgrade. In the morning, I ran the hurdles qualifications, then ran the race, and returned to the cabin to continue broadcasting the event. It was all normal - she recalled later.
Milka was a great worker and a good soul. At the time in the 90s, when some journalists were counting her blood cells and wondering whether they could place her among the greatest Croatian athletes or not, she generously helped refugees by accommodating them in her tiny apartment in Zagreb.
In one of her last longer interviews for HRT, Milka, quoting a well-known writer, said: - You know what, all great things happen by themselves and either hit us on the head or bring good things. But when I come to Brooklyn, I run back to that corner every time to see if baker Kowalski bakes such wonderful pastries as in my childhood. And I remembered that. There are little things that are such gems that you must never forget or lose them. It's getting harder and harder for me to do it, but I can do it sometimes... -
And Milka's commentary on figure skating, her conjuring of colorful dresses from the world championships to the spectators sitting in front of black and white televisions, became one of the jewels of the collective memory of an entire small nation.
