Exactly 16 years ago, I was punished for the first time in my life for stealing corn. I was 9yrs old and as I was playing outside with some boys from my street (and at that time it made no difference how old was anyone, kids from 5 to 15 would all play together), someone decided it would be awesome to go to the fields of corn a little outside of the village and get some so we could bake them in an open fire. I tagged along and was made a watcher, making sure no one would catch us. As we returned, mom asked me where I had been, I told her and she got mad and grounded me.
So how come I remember the exact date? Because it was the day when we left our home for 7 years without even knowing it.
As Dad returned from work, he told my mother to pack some stuff for us because he was taking us to our grandma's for a few days. You see, the next day was the Catholic holiday, Assumption of Mary or as we call it, Velika Gospa, and there was the air of uncertainty and fear because people who were our neighbours just yesterday were suddenly a threat. So we packed some summer clothes, waved at our dog and went to visit grandma. I thought it was quite ironic (or I would have, had I at that point known what ironic meant) how instead of being grounded, I'm gonna go visit grandma and hang out with my friends there. Who knew I'd be hanging out there for a lot longer than a few days.
Dad came one week later, escaping at the very last minute. Baranja je šaptom pala. Baranja fell silently, they said. He brought some clothes for us, but it was old, things we grew out of (God knows where he had found it, he had no way around the house, at that time we were never certain if he even knew he had kids since he was always working, all day long), things that were mostly useless. What happened to my dog, where was Alf, I wanted to know. He was left at my aunt's who decided not to go, thinking she was an elderly lady, thinking she was safe. Little did we know. No one was safe. Old people were being kicked out of their houses, women were raped, men were slaughtered. She was unharmed, though, and was able to get out a year later. A Serbian family came to her house, she had to sign a paper saying she's leaving them her house. (She left them Alf too so when we returned home 7 years later, they were still there and so was my dog and we took him home. He recognised me, imagine that!) But I digress.
So when my dad came, he had arranged with one of his friends for all of us to go to Hungary, to a village where that friend of his had some family. Across the border, in the middle of the night, terrified of the unknown. My dad's passport had expired, they only let him into the country because of his Hungarian name and because he speaks the language. We were there for about 2 weeks, 14 of us in one house. My sister and I hated it and kept asking to go back to grandma's. And so we went back. The expired passport was not an obstacle for returning, even though the customs officer at our side asked my dad why was he returning when so many were leaving the country. But that's just how my dad is, he couldn't live with himself hiding while others were fighting for his home. So we returned and he joined the army in making. No uniforms, almost no weapons, no planes, helicopters, tanks. All they had were their hearts, courage and patriotism.
Then it got really bad somewhere before Christmas and off we were, to yet another part of the country, the three of us left to mother's relatives we have never seen in our lives who had found us, God knows how, and insisted we came to where it was safe.
We were there for three weeks, this time it was 11 people in the house. The phone lines were so overloaded that most of the times Osijek was unreachable. All we could do was listen to the news announcing the numbers of killed people, hoping, praying dad wasn't one of them. We were even enrolled to school during that brief time and me, a 10 year old girl attending the school for only two weeks was the announcer at a Christmas show at the school. So after the show all these mothers surrounded me, asking my teacher who I was and in the middle of this commotion, I started crying and they all got worried, asking me what was wrong, and I said: "Everyone's dad is here except for mine."
We returned to my grandma's shortly after, we just couldn't bear being so far away from him. A few more months of nights in the basement under fire, of listening to the news on the radio, of calling hospitals and Red Cross and the Crisis Centre, praying his name wasn't on any of the lists and then it all calmed down. We moved to Osijek in 1992 and stayed there till 1998. My home was across the river, occupied. So close and yet so out of reach. Years later, after two brilliant operations of Croatian Army (that was built out of nothing), our country was finally freed of the aggressors and we were able to return to our home that we had to leave 16 years ago.
when I graduate. Thank you.
