detail from: KRK Art dizajn

EXPERIENCED - SURVIVED

 

Our father Lazo spent his youth in America. He was young and no work was difficult for him. In America, he fell in love with Andja (Angie) and America with her. And when his older brother Djuro forced him to return to Bosnia, he hoped to return to Angie, but the situation changed and he stayed in Bosnia, forever. Angie could not regret it, he spent nights crying. He had to build a house and his parents forced him to get married. They gave birth to six of us children. He did not mention Angie to anyone, he found solace in everyday affairs, lonely, working over-to-much in the fields. The mother had her hands full of household chores and worries around us, the children.

And when the war came, on the eve of Christmas 1942, we were forced to leave the housing and find ourselves refugees. Our father left us in Grmeč, near Elezovac, the mother, with five weak children, and he had to return to the partisans and save the house. Meanwhile, our oldest sister Dushanka had died. We were exposed to cold and hunger, and so exhausted we spent nine weeks wandering aimlessly through the Bosnian forests. During those nine weeks, we had eaten only three rye breads and fresh intestines of one cow, which was slaughtered by partisans and thrown into the stream. We spent most of the night under coniferous trees, and only spent some nights in abandoned barns. There was no end in sight to our suffering.

When we found ourselves near Mrkonjic Grad, the Germans captured us and took us to be shot. They lined us up in the deep snow, and in front of us already lay those whom the Germans had previously killed. Some were still moving and bleeding. We all held hands with each other, looming death. At that moment, the partisans found out what was happening and made a violent assault, before the Germans managed to load machine guns and rifles, and fortunately for us, they saved us. The partisans then took us to a barracks, where they warmed us, fed us and encouraged us.

My older sister Marija, less than fourteen years old, carried me all the time, and my younger sister Sava and brother Jovo, 11 and 8 years old, carried some bedding that we spread on the snow wherever we ended up. The mother was carrying the youngest Rada, another baby from just over one year old. I was about three and a half years old, so Maria had to carry me all the time, because the snow was usually deep for the top of me.

When we found ourselves on the Shator Mountain, it was raining icy, the mountain was completely chained in ice, and the Germans surrounded the partisans and us refugees, and the circle around us tightened more and more. Everyone was threatened with death. The partisans found the only possible way out by crossing the top of the mountain, during which they cut the ice with bayonets and walked step by step, in a column, one after the other, and we refugees dragged behind them. When we found ourselves at the top of the mountain, Marija was completely exhausted, she could not take any more steps, so she asked our mother for permission to throw me into the snow, because she saw that others were doing the same with their helpless children. Her mother allowed it, aware that we were all coming to an end. And Marija lowered me into the deep snow, behind the destroyed beech, from which I could not get out. I cried and begged her to come back, to take me, I promised her that I would buy her a "green skirt" when I grow up. The column moved further and further and I never saw any of mine again. I cried harder and harder, I froze and I was already losing my sight, I felt like I was slowly dying. And while I was lying in the snow like that, saying goodbye to life, Maria could not continue on her way, thinking of me, she felt guilty for my death, she came back and found me still alive, curled up in the snow, and already half-stiff. She picked me up, she cried, and I managed to hug her, and when I regained consciousness, I told her: "Marija, I love you the most."

And the post-war years have passed, we have experienced many sufferings, Mather was killed by the Germans, our youngest sister Rada also died. We never had anything to help us, even the father had to make coffins himself in both cases, and only we, the minor children, attended the funeral. Marija replaced her mother, at the age of only fourteen, and we didn't have any groceries in the house, and only Marija could remember how we survived at all.

After finishing primary school, in my home village of Jasenica, my uncle Đuro took me to Mladenovo, where I continued my eighth grade. Soon, after two years, Đuro died suddenly, and I, at the age of fourteen, remained the only man in the house, and I was forced to go to work in the peasant labor cooperative "Grmeč". And to make life even worse, the manager of that cooperative, Svetko Maleš, enrolled me only for half the wage, even though I met the full norms like all adult workers. He once said to me: "You are small and you need to eat less." I can never forget that.

I had my aunt Mara in the house, whom all the neighbors called "Kadeka", and her mother Boja Potkonjak, who was related to Nikola Tesla. That grandmother Boja was extremely bright

One day, Kadeka went to the Melenci spa and started begging me not to go to the Danube. She had a bad dream and was afraid that I would drown. And I, I can't wait for her to leave, I invite my neighbor and friend Mladen to go to the Danube. And as soon as we arrived on the Danube, a young man, when they called a tailor, threw an oar into the water and ordered me to go and get it, so that the water wouldn't take it away. And, I take that as an order and I swim. When I reached for the oar and pushed it towards the shore, a whirlwind caught me in a turn, and began to turn me. Now I see one shore, now another, I start sinking. Somehow I resist and rise to the surface. When I started drowning for the second time, my friend Mladen realized that I was drowning and started shouting, out loud, "Help." Help''. This was heard by the wife of the fisherman Sobodan, who was asleep.

She woke him up and Slobodan tore his shirt in the race, jumped into the water and swam towards me. I was already drowning for the third time at that time and I saw my funeral. I saw myself in the coffin and only about a dozen people in the column, carrying me in the coffin. If it is a clinical death, well, I experienced and survived it.

And while I was drowning for the third time, still somewhat conscious, I managed to resist with both hands about the water, which threw me to the surface, and then Slobodan grabbed my left upper arm and pulled me to the shore. He laid me downhill, but I wasn’t full of water. I regained it relatively little. During that time, the tailor escaped, and my friend Mladen had just moved away from the shore. As soon as I got up from the lying position, Mladen took my hand and we headed home. It is unbelievable that while we were entering the village, we met some people who had already been informed that I was drowning. When my aunt Kadeka returned from the spa, I promised her that I would listen to her in the future and that I would not go to the Danube again.

When four years of my stay in Mladenovo passed, my sister Marija came to pick me up and took me to Novi Sad. I left Kadeka, her mother, grandmother Boja, and we never saw each other. I only visited their graves when I later visited Mladenovo. Grandma Boja remained in my fondest memory, for her extraordinary nobility. Ever since I know for myself, I have been hungry, until I came to Marija in Novi Sad. Kadeka kept food under the key, and fed me with her rools. I ate at Maria's for the first time. Marija and her husband Nikola educated me in a technical school and I graduated from the Faculty of Technology with them. And when I received my first engineering salary, I bought Marija a "green skirt", as well as a refrigerator, because the green skirt was not expensive. The story "I’ll buy you a green skirt" was published by journalist Gordana Arok in the New Year's issue of Dnevnik, on the eve of 1964. Mary became and remained my "Guardian Angel'' for me.

Later, for one vacation, Stanko Žugić offered to travel together to Czechoslovakia, with his Fića. And we accept that Nikola, Marija's husband, and I, and set off. We first spent two days on the Zohova Hata mountain, not far from Bratislava, and then we visited the Moravian Karst cave, not far from Brno. From there we traveled to Prague, where our stay started nicely, in the inn "Brave Soldier Schweik", and the same evening we had a car accident on Charles Bridge, during which a Volga taxi ran into our Fića and overturned us three times. During the overturning, I fell out of the passenger seat and hit my head on the curb. I fainted completely and stopped breathing. Seeing that, Nikola was still conscious enough and gave me mouth-to-mouth artificial respiration. He saved my life on the spot. An architect found himself there and called an ambulance. We were soon at the “First Infirm Hospital”, where I underwent surgery. I had a brain hemorrhage, six injured ribs, blood in my left ear, a broken left arcade, which the doctor operated on, and who knows what else. I was unconscious for about ten hours. The next day, when I regained consciousness, Nikola and Stanko, with the doctor and his wife, who assisted him in the operation, were all standing in white coats. I forgot my name, and everything else, I barely recognized Nikola, after a while. Some time later, Nikola told me that he was in our embassy and there he accidentally found his friend from primary school, as the secretary of the embassy. The embassy helped us, they bought us all train tickets, and for me, coupes with beds.

Upon my return to Novi Sad, I received a three-month sick leave from my doctor Bogdan Nećak, and he then left me for further follow-up to his colleague, Dr. Gordana. Gordana first sent me to the Koviljača spa for a two-week recovery, where I was visited by Sloboda Antić, who brought me the newspaper Politika, where I found a competition for postgraduate studies in England. I applied and got a stay in Chorleywood, from where my life will take me to Canada, where I did my doctoral dissertation.

When we told jokes on one occasion, my friend Stojan Malić liked jokes about Bosnians, which define us as stupid and stubborn, so he said: "Here, Bosnian, he liked to call me that, you confirmed that rule, even Volga hit  you in your head, and couldn’t  kill  you.

And after all that I have survived, I am still alive, I have proven myself in the profession, I became a United Nations expert, I traveled a lot around the world, published a lot of works and created a family with whom I live happily in Canada, our second homeland.

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