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Jean-Michel NicolierJean-Michel was a French volunteer who joined the Croatian cause in the earliest days of its struggle. Mobilised into a unit of HOS he inevitably found his way to the scene of the heaviest fighting in Vukovar, on the banks of the Danube bordering Serbia. The city became cut off in the middle of October 1991 and about 800 defenders fought on desperately until forced to surrender when their food and ammunition ran out on the 19th November. All but a few of the combatants were massacred by the Yugoslav Army and gangs of nationalist Serbs known as chetniks. Jean-Michel was lightly wounded in the desperate fighting of the last few days. On the 16th November his commander visited him in the hospital and advised Jean-Michel that the remnants of their unit were going to try a breakout to Croatian lines at Vinkovci but the French volunteer elected to remain. That was the last time he was seen alive. Regarded as a mercenary, Jean-Michel was murdered along with other patients in the hospital and his body dumped in a mass grave nearby. He was the first International Volunteer to die in the conflict. A keen photographer, his unique visual record of the battle survives in the possession of his former commander.
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