86-year-old Djordje Mihailovic has been tending to the discolored marble tombs of Serb soldiers killed during WWI at Thessaloniki’s Allied War Cemetery in northern Greece for over 100 years. “This is my family,” he told Associated Press. “I know many of the names of the soldiers here and many of their stories.”

Outnumbered Serb soldiers fought off the Austro-Hungarian invasion for over a year before Germany and Bulgaria joined the onslaught that lead to over a third of the army’s death. “It’s a story the world should know,” says Mr. Mihailovic of the Serbian army that endured a harrowing defeat as it retreated to join the Allied troops of Britain and France in 1916.

He is a godsend to Serb visitors making the pilgrimage to seek their families at the site. Mr. Mihailovic’s own family is buried here. His grandfather, a World War I veteran was the cemetery’s first caretaker, and then his father, and now Mihailovic who plans to work her until he dies.

But who will take over next?