detail from: KRK Art dizajn

WE FROM PODGRMEC

By SIMO JELAČA, Ph.D.

SCHOOL IN JASENICA

In our school, Tito held a review of the Krajina brigades in 1943, and after the war, the first Yugoslav film ‘‘This People Will Live’’ was filmed there. In one scene, Jovo and Boris were seen together.

When Boris found himself in the school classroom, he secretly looked at the walls on which a map was hanging. The classroom had two rows of desks, placed parallel to each other, with first-grade students sitting in one row and third-grade students in the other. In the afternoon classes, second- and fourth-grade students sat there. The school in Jasenica included children from Jasenica, Benakovec, Gorinja and Vojevac. There were too many students because the war had disrupted the older generations. That's why they sat in two classes in the same classroom at the same time, and there was only one teacher for everyone.

That's why it's no wonder that teacher Nada didn't pay attention to Boris. She didn't ask him anything. She knew his brother Job, who excelled in knowledge. Boris sat like that, quietly, for weeks, and then he too began to raise his hand. Whenever he knew the questions the teacher was asking, he would raise his hand, even though she never asked him. And sometime during March, Nada noticed that Boris was constantly asking questions, so she decided to ask him too. And he answered her first question correctly. The next day, Boris again answered correctly, just as the teacher had expected. Days passed like that, she asked questions and he regularly asked questions and answered correctly. At the end of the school year, when Father Lazo wanted to re-enroll him in first grade, the teacher wouldn't let him. Boris finished the first grade with excellent results, as did his brother Jovo, who attended classes regularly throughout the school year.

Somewhere towards the end of the third grade, for some reason, the teacher Nada was transferred, and teacher Milan Potkonjak came to Jasenica. He had a mustache, so he seemed strict to the students, although he was basically a real human soul, born to be a teacher. Excellent students also appeared to teacher Milan among the first, and he remembered them from the first days. That's how he remembered Jovo and Boris. He knew that they were in the same grade because of the war, although they were four years apart. In order to speed up the education of all the children who arrived from neighboring villages, the teachers were given permission to allow excellent students to complete two grades in one year, and so Jovo finished the third and fourth grades in the same year, a year before Boris.

Spring was the most beautiful time of the year for them. The snow disappeared, and soon after St. George's Day, the wild strawberries began to ripen, and that was when all the students knew how to stop on their way home from school. When the school year ended, Jovo finished elementary school, fourth grade, and Boris third, both with excellent results, Marija and Sava prepared cakes for lunch, and Sava laid a white tablecloth on the dining table. They all sat down together, Father Lazo crossed himself and prayed to God, while the others stood at the table. When the father sat down, the others sat down too. First they had chicken soup, then a dish with vegetables and roasted chicken, and finally cakes. They hadn't had cakes since the war ended, so this lunch was a real treat to remember for a long time.

Finishing lunch, Father Lazo was the first to say:

- You've finished school, now you need to work the land. Both boys, Jovo and Boris, bowed their heads, waiting for their father to say more. Boris was the first to say:

- Uncle Dušan’s, all the boys, all four of them are going to the gymnasium in Krupa, can Jovo go too, he is an excellent student? To this his father replied:

- He won't be able to, Dušan is a forester and has a civil service job, he can send his children to school. I can't work the land myself, and the land is a source of income. You, Boris, will go for another year, so that you can finish elementary school, and then we'll see what can be done. At that, everyone in the house, both boys and both of their sisters, remained speechless and sat at the table in silence for a while longer.

A bright, sunny and warm day, only the beginning of July, the plums were already ripe, and the pears were starting to turn yellow. Jovo and Boris came to Uncle Dušan's house and sat down under the balcony, facing the house of Ilija and his sons Mile and Boćo. Boris waved to Boćo to join them, and he did. Drago and Nenad also came, and they all sat around the table. Then they started talking about what everyone had planned. Drago and Nenad were known to be in high school, they were already in high school. They talked about how nice they were in Krupa, and that they had a nice house, where their father's office was, and they lived upstairs, in the attic. From their room they could see the school and the fortress above the Una. Boćo said that his father would let him go to medical school, saying that with that profession he would easily find a job. And Jovo said that he would stay to work the land and added:

- I have nothing against working on the land, I like those jobs, and the most important thing is to do what you like. We will plant more fruit trees, we will graft some, I will form a garden next to the house so that we can have our own vegetables, and in the future I will build a barn for livestock, I do not want my livestock to live under us in the basement and everything will be better. When educated people come to my house, you will always have something to eat and drink and you will always be welcome. And I will be glad that my relatives are educated people and I will be proud of you in the village. We will need you like that. We will also need doctors and engineers and policemen, we will need all professions. Just go and get educated and good luck to you. When they had made their excuses, they went to the fruit orchard, each picked a pear and a plum, and then each went home. Jovo and Boris ran on their way home and arrived home in a few minutes. They even jumped over a stream in their rush.

THE HARSH GRMEČ

Grmeč is a mountain range on the southern side of the villages of Jasenica, Gorinje and Vojevac. A stone road leads from Jasenica to Grmeč, which was used to travel to the mountains by truck, cart or on foot.

We escaped to Grmeč on Christmas Eve. Father Lazo put the maternity ward in an ox cart, with some food and bedding, and drove it to the forest. Lazo received the order to go to Grmeč from the local command, and he knew that the Germans had already approached Jasenica and that it was necessary to save lives. When they arrived in Grmeč, near Elezovac, he unloaded them there, built a hut out of fir branches, inside with spacious branches and decorated plants, and left them. He returned home because he had an obligation to go to the front as a scout.

Snow fell at night and decorated the branches of the tall fir trees that towered over their hut. There were several children there, and they did not understand the situation they found themselves in, they thought they had come for a picnic. It only lasted less than two days, and the order to move arrived. None of the refugees knew where they were going, they just packed up and moved. A column was formed. The women took what they could from the settlement, and the older children led or carried the younger ones. Marija took Boris, Sava and Jovo walked behind their mother, who was still carrying little Rada. They had almost nothing left of the food they had brought. In the column, mothers were mostly heard calling their children. They found themselves in the first night of the march. The column moved, but slower and slower. Somewhere around midnight they sat down under the beech and fir trees and the voices grew quieter. They slept sitting in the snow and holding their children in their laps. As dawn began to break, the first voices were heard, the adults had to wake the children and continue walking.

They walked like that for two days, freezing rain fell, they were all wet, cold, hungry, sleepless, tired, and the paths they were walking on were all frozen. They found themselves below Šator Mountain. There were also partisans there, but they were all surrounded and there was nowhere to go but over the mountain itself. And the mountain was steep and icy, impassable, terrible. The partisans went forward, cutting the ice with bayonets and walking, and the column of refugees followed them, step by step. It lasted the whole day, and only towards evening did they find themselves in some village, where no one was heard from. It seemed that they had already fled too, their houses were deserted, and the cattle were left in the stables.

– Mother put us in a barn on hay. We rested there for a while, Jovo added, and the next day we continued on. The column formed again and everyone walked in silence.

Jovo continued to talk about all the details he could remember.

-And then suddenly we heard a burst of gunfire, it seemed quite far away, when no more than twenty minutes had passed, four German soldiers appeared with rifles and forced us all into a line. They drove us to a hill surrounded by forest and began to line us up. In front of us were lying in the deep snow, killed men, women and children. Some were still moving and blood was still flowing from them. We saw what was coming for us. And while they were lining us up, we heard terrible machine gun fire. The partisans were notified of what was happening and they attacked with all their might and saved us. Later they told us that it had happened near Mrkonjić Grad.

Boćo, Dule and Nenad listened, and they simply could not believe what was happening to them in the refugee camps, and nothing like it happened to those who stayed at home.

In the refugee column, through deep snow, in the coldest weather, the mother led and carried her five children through the Bosnian mountains. All of them were frozen and starving, sick, and moved like half-alive corpses. Thus they passed Krnjeusa, Bosanski Petrovac, Marjanovića Do, Vođenica, Smoljani, Sanica, Mrkonjić Grad, Rore, Mlinište, Prekaje, Tičevo, Mokronoge, Drvar, Martin Brod, Kulen Vakuf, Donji Lapac, Srbac, Boljani, Prkose, Vrtoče, Gornji Lapac, Korjenica, Vrhovine and the Plitvice Lakes. They hiked over the Grmeč, Klekovača, Oštrelj peak, Crni vrh, Šator mountain and many others. In nine weeks, all six of them ate only three oat loaves of bread. They ate uncooked cow intestines, which the mother had only washed in an icy stream. Many mothers threw their own children into the rivers, they could not go any further. Jovo remembered how their older sister Marija, who had been carrying Boris the whole time, threw him behind a fallen beech tree into deep snow. He cried and begged her not to leave him, promising her that he would buy her a green skirt when she grew up. He remembered that skirt when his mother wore it and it probably remained in his memory as very beautiful. Marija took pity on him and returned to take him again. Boris was small at the time and could not walk through the deep snow alone. He hugged Marija tightly around the neck and cried nonstop. The mother was silent, carrying Rada and another bag on her back. She walked in front, and the children followed her in a column. Jovo also told them how a bone had fallen out of his toe when his feet froze. He just stopped, pulled the bone that was sticking out, and threw it into the snow. He continued, what else could he do?

When they found themselves at the Plitvice Lakes, it was March, the snow had mostly melted, and they were still lingering only in the coves where the sun did not reach. All of them, exhausted, hungry, exhausted, thin, they dragged themselves like silhouettes, not knowing where they were or how long this persecution would last. There were several refugees there, some of them looked completely lost. One day, the sun was shining and everyone came out of the barracks where they were staying, and as if they couldn't believe their eyes, their father Lazo appeared from somewhere. The mother was the first to notice him and called out to the children. Everyone gathered around him and started hugging him.

Where did you come from?, they shouted almost at the top of their voices. And he first took out the food he had brought them, sat down on some logs and began to tell them:

I dreamed where you were and the path I would take to get to you. I baked three loaves of bread and prepared this food that I brought you, I knew you were hungry and I set off on the journey towards my dreams. I had no one to ask along the way if I was going the right way, but luck brought me here. I guess God helped me too. Thank God, I found you. On the way, I spent two nights in someone's barns, on the hay, they were deserted.

They sat for a while longer, and then set off home. Father knew the path he had come by, so they set off back the same way. All of them, exhausted, moved slowly. Father took Boris from Maria, and mother was still carrying Rada. The two of them talked about where they had been and what had happened to them. The journey took them four days, they walked more slowly than their father on the way back. They all spent the night in abandoned huts along the way. When they arrived home, they could hardly believe their eyes that they had finally arrived at their home after a whole winter. The enemy had looted a lot of things from the house, but the beds and a table with chairs were still there. They had a place to sleep after so many wasted nights. Their father made sure to save some food, so they ate for the first time. Father Lazo still occasionally went to the partisans, serving as their translator for the English language, which he had learned while working in America. There were times when he also translated German for captured German officers. It would be such a short time before their mother Milka, tortured by the escapees and physically abused by enemy soldiers, died. Little Rada also died, just a few days after her mother. Father Lazo had to make the coffins for the funeral himself, and no one was allowed to attend the funeral except for his two remaining daughters and two sons.

Dule said that his parents Janko and Milka were captured by the Germans and taken to Germany. He and his older sister Bora stayed with their uncles Ilija and Petar, but they did not escape. Janko and Milka stayed in Germany until the liberation, and when they returned they said that they worked in the countryside there but that they were fine. No one tortured them, they had something to eat, but they never knew if they would ever return to their home. They learned German and were proud of it.

While the war was still going on, the partisans installed a telephone exchange in Lazo's house. The phones rang every hour and one of the operators, who maintained the connections, answered loudly, shouting: - Hello! It went on like that day and night.

The enemies had probably located the switchboard and tried to destroy it. They bombed Laza's house. The plane flew low and dropped two bombs, twice, but fortunately both missed. They didn't even explode. Both of them buried themselves deep in the ground, so the shepherds monitored their location and put branches on both of them so that no one, not even their cattle, would come across them.

The event that took place in Zalin was forever remembered. The harvesters were harvesting wheat in Uncle Dušan's field, and the shepherds were herding sheep nearby. On their way back from Berlin, where American planes were bombing Germany, a plane appeared in flames flying over Jasenica from the direction of Italy. The harvesters noticed that the plane was descending, the pilot was looking for a suitable landing area, but seeing the harvesters and the flocks of sheep in the field, he did not want to risk them, so he flew over them all. Father Lazo immediately realized what was going to happen and ran in the direction the plane was flying. The plane flew over part of the hill and buried itself between two hills in Zalina. Lazo was the first to arrive at the scene of the accident and before the flames had engulfed the entire plane, he managed to pull out and save seven soldiers from the plane. The remaining five were burned in the plane. Lazo brought the rescued soldiers to his house, where the telephone exchange was still located. As he spoke English, the American soldiers could not believe their luck in falling into the hands of an "American". The next day, Lazo went with Jovo and his neighbors to the crash site, they pulled the burned soldiers out of the plane, he removed the death certificate from each of them, and they were buried in the cemetery next to the Zalina school. The Partisan headquarters reported to Belgrade and after a few days, officers arrived to take the rescued soldiers away. The parents of those who were buried came the following year, talked to Lazo, and took the bones of their children with the death certificates. They did thank Lazo and took comfort in his house, but he never received any gratitude or recognition from anyone after the war. True, Lazo did not expect it from anyone, he was pleased that he saved the Americans, because he loved their country, America, with all his heart and soul.

To be continued

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