Robert Kovac and Mladen Krstajic playing on German soccer cup final

Bayern Munich's players present the Cup to the fans after the German soccer cup final between Bayern Munich against Schalke 04 in Berlin Olympic stadium Saturday, May 28, 2005. Munich won with 2-1. From left to right: Lucio from Brazil, unidentified, Michael Ballack, Oliver Kahn, Claudio Pizzaro from Peru, Ze Roberto from Brazil, Robert Kovac from Croatia. (AP Photo/Roberto Pfeil)
AP - May 28 6:21 PM

Munich's Dutch soccer player Roy Makaay, left, and Schalkes soccer player Mladen Krstajic from Croatia, right, challenge for the ball during the German soccer cup final match between FC Bayern Munich and Schalke 04 in Berlin's Olympia stadium on Saturday, May 28, 2005. Munich won the match 2-1. (AP Photo/Christof Stache) AP - May 28 6:31 PM
 

Indian Cabinet okays pact with Croatia

5/27/2005 10:10:53 AM IST

The Union Cabinet on Thursday gave its approval for the signing of agreement with Croatia in the field of health and medicine for a period of five years.

The agreement provides for cooperation in the areas of mother and child health; family planning; public health and nursing; communicable diseases; medicine research; medicine equipment and pharmaceutical products; hospital management; and standards and curricula of medical education.

The cooperation shall be in the form of exchange of information in the field of health and Medicine; exchange of delegations of health and medical specialists; training in the mutually agreed identified areas and deputation of experts to attend international meetings held in either country.

The bilateral agreement will encourage cooperation between India and Croatia in the field of health and medicine on the basis of equality, reciprocity and mutual benefit. India has entered into similar bilateral agreements with Hungary, Yemen, Seychelles, Tanzania and Austria.

http://www.indiainfoline.com/news/news.asp?dat=59366

Why does Croatia make so many appearances throughout history?

Sail Croatia and its islands, made of "God's tears, stars and breath",
wrote George Bernard Shaw.


God's tears, stars and breath
May 26, 2005 - Volume XIII, Issue 21

It was in the Croatian sea that the Argonauts searched for the Golden Fleece and on the island of Mljet that Calipso imprisoned Ulysses for seven years.

Gustav Mahler reorchestrated several movements of his 4th Symphony in Opatija, and James Joyce wrote while teaching English in Pula. Why does Croatia make so many appearances throughout history? Perhaps Shaw was right. Croatia won the Lonely Planet award for the world's top destination for 2005, and, with 1,186 islands, is one of the best sailing destinations in the Mediterranean. Clean sea, unspoiled nature and a rugged coastline, well equipped marinas, mild climate and fair winds are some of the reasons why Croatia is a favorite for boaters. The Croatian coastline, from north to south, consists of Istria, Kvarner and Dalmatia. Here is a brief survey of some of the most well-known sailing destinations.

The Brijuni archipelago of 14 islands off the western coast of Istria holds unparalleled beauty and was the preferred destination of rulers. It was the choice of the Austro-Hungarian aristocracy and the location for Tito's summer residence. In 1984 Brijuni became a national park and boasts a safari park and a golf course. With so many islands to choose from, sailing itineraries are plentiful and offer something new from one year to the next. If you hanker for the historical, consider departing Opatija for the island of Cres, visit the ancient town of Lubenice, standing atop a 378 meter high cliff, and the Croatian St. Tropez, Le Figaro. From Cres continue on to Mali Losinj and visit the Ilovik Island, called "The Island of Flowers".

Try the squid there - the taste is unlike anywhere else on the Adriatic. A completely different Kvarnerian itinerary could be: Porer - Unije - Susak.

Porer is a tiny island occupied only by a lighthouse (available for summer rental).

Just 70 meters wide and without vegetation, Porer appears like a white pearl floating on the blue sea surface.

Unije, alternately, will amaze you with high vertical cliffs, while Susak is a sandy island of scrub, no higher then half a meter, famous for unique traditional ladies costumes: hectic-colored skirts are above the knees - something rare in conservative Croatia.

The 140 islands of Kornati national park in Northern Dalmatia are one of the most celebrated sailing destinations in the Adriatiac. The park offers 69 species of butterflies alone. Sailing routes here are so numerous that recommending any would be unfair to the others, but some locations stand out: Taljuric island has a surprising oval shape and is so low that it is often submerged by the sea; Anica Bay, on the island of Lavernaka, is considered to be the most beautiful bay in Kornati; while Stiniva boasts an impressive cave.

From Split, the capital of Central Dalmatia, setting your course for Lastovo, making your first stop on the island of Solta, famous for its olives. Continue on to Brac, where the stone used for building the White House was quarried, then turn toward Hvar, the island of lavender and wine. Palmizana should be your next stop: it offers an excellent marina and restaurant. Set sail then for the island of Korcula, visit the island of Proizd for a swim, visit Vela Luka, then sail on to Lastovo.

Southern Dalmatia has two world-famous attractions: the city of Dubrovnik and Mljet National Park. Both are tame in comparison to the sailing route we recommend for the adventurous.

The starting point is Dubrovnik and the final destination is the Ostra (translated as "sharp") Horn. Vertical cliffs over 100 meters in height dominate the landscape of this itinerary punctuated by beautiful Croatian resorts like Srebreno (translated as "The Silver"), Mlini and Cavtat, along the Azurna Obala.

Your itinerary includes the deserted islands of Mrkan and Bobara, the seagall kingdom, ideal for sports fishing. Strma is found beyond the Cavtat shore, where, on the cliffs tops, you can try horseback riding.

_ Sail through Croatia with the help of www.adriatica.net, the online travel agency.


http://www.budapestsun.com/full_story.asp?ArticleId=%7BAC983DA0D6C94502A0B860658EC9E3B8%7D&From=Style

Pavarotti Says Goodbye To Stage

Written by: Carolina Taylor

Remembering a man for his gifts of voice and self-

One of the greatest voices to grace a stage has bid farewell to his fans and to his family of musicians, at the Metropolitan Opera. His voice, his face and his body showed the time and years, but his spirit and presence shined through. With dignity and honor, he walked off stage, leaving many in tears.

It was always The Three Tenors: Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo, and the most famous, the most powerfully glorious, at least to me, Luciano Pavarotti. Many lovers of opera and the classical genre agree. Spanning the generations of musical ingenuity and showmanship, Pavarotti has blended song with hundreds of contemporaries throughout his career. Who doesn't know Pavarotti?

I remember coming home from concerto rehearsals and walking into a house rich with the smell of burning incense, mulberry candles and the thrill of Pavarotti echoing from the record player, throughout every room. For a sense of nostalgia, I have a choice of 10 CDs of his that I can throw in and drift back in time and that's only one-third of the albums my mother owned. Not many artists can claim that kind of solid endurance. His unique concerts, which seemed to gain monumental movement with the kick-off of his 1995 Pavarotti and Friends concert, held in his hometown of Modena, Italy, were most famous for bringing in big names, and big bucks for causes that wrapped the globe.

Universally respected and adored, Pavarotti has brought in attendees such as the late Diana Princess of Wales, heads of state and politicians of every variation, as well the world's best and most exciting names in pop music, creating timeless albums and concerts. Bono and The Edge, Brian Eno, Zucchero, Jovanotti, Simon Le Bon, Dolores O'Riordan, Meat Loaf, Michael Bolton, The Chieftains andNenad Bach topped '95s bill. The robust powerhouse dedicated that concert and many to follow, to causes he staunchly supported, such as War Child's Music center (Bosnian Relief) project that year. In the years to follow he supported projects to assist children of poverty and war-stricken regions, Guatamala and Kosovo, Cambodia and Tibet, and Liberia with top artists such as Joan Osbourne, Elton John, and jazz sensation Eric Clapton lending their sound, for a noteworthy legend, and cause.< BR>
Pavarotti's heart and talent has always been directed at refugee causes and an inordinate amount of time, passion, and his proceeds went to refugee assistance in particular. For the last years that Pavarotti and Friends has had its run, all proceeds have gone directly to programs such as United Nations refugee agency's programs for Angolan refugees in Zambia. Other famous chart-topping names for those concerts included Sting, Lou Reed, James Brown, Andrea Bocelli, Grace Jones and Zucchero. A choir consisting of 30 Angolan refugee children, specially flown in from Zambia, and 30 Italian children, also performed at his show-stopping performances. It's been a vast and varied history of performers, but with a common theme: Humanitarian Aid.

Throughout the years, even designers like Versace and Giorgio Armani have pitched in behind the scenes and walked through the midst of the gala events. In June 2001, Pavarotti was awarded the Nansen Refugee Award, the top global award for services to refugees, in recognition of his abiding support and concern for refugees.

His deep tight-laced phrasing, heart wrenching in its pureness, has drawn fans back, time and time again. His hearty personality and effortless high notes have brought him a popularity unparalleled among modern opera stars, but Pavarotti always asked to be treated and taken seriously, as an artist in the world outside of opera.

Just so on Saturday night, with his farewell stop at the Met. If you are one of the lucky few to have seen the legend in concert, as I have, you left humbled and deeply enriched, musically and socially.

Throughout the years, Pavarotti has endured rumors and innuendos about his vast array of paramours and his love of notoriety, but no one can say the man didn't energize and stamp the culture and face of music history forever. However, few would have guessed in '02 that the endearing tenor, now 68, would be back on stage Saturday night for the first of three farewell performances in Puccini's "Tosca."

May of '02, Joseph Volpe, the Metropolitan's general manager, informed the disappointed crowd that Pavarotti had canceled what was to be his final goodbye performance because of illness and had refused to come on stage to explain. Volpe told him, "This is a hell of a way to end this beautiful career of yours."

But unerringly, it appears the two made amends and Pavarotti clearly wanted to bid adieu properly to his fans and his beloved Metropolitan Opera House, where he had sung 373 performances of 20 roles since his initial debut in 1968. On Saturday, Pavarotti's entrance was greeted by thunderous applause. The cheering brought a familiar smile to his aging face as he walked slowly across the lavish Franco Zeffirelli set. As always, at ease on stage, he soon relaxed and playfully smiled at fans, setting the mood for the acts to follow. There were points throughout the evening that his performance waned, and his breathless strain could not be heard above the orchestra led by James Levine, but as one fan said, this did nothing to diminish the power of his final act. "I will always remember this moment. There was not a dry eye in the house." Bravely, he battled his weakness, relaying to the crowd time and time again, why they loved that signature Pavarotti sound.

Unlike his last performances, from Madame to Aida, he did not seem to gather his strength back, but most of the crowd did not come to see a singer say goodbye, anyway. They came to see a gentle, generous master step down. How ironic, that he lent such a poignant close to his character Cavaradossi's last dying hours, final moments. The crowd seemed to feel that power. As they stood and screamed their applause, they sadly watched the end of a musical icon.

His final two "Toscas" are 3/10 and 3/13. Then, Pavarotti will continue his final farewell world tour concert that he kicked off with his Caesars Palace performance in Las Vegas, Nevada. He will retire completely in 2005.

We will fondly remember the man that brought music to a whole new level; a level that had no class delineations, no boundaries. We will say goodbye to the years of beauty, art, and humanity that he has left to us.

Pages Updated On: 27-May-2005 - 21:00:03

http://www.thecelebritycafe.com/features/1183.html
 

Courtney Angela Brkic
Author of Stone Fields converses with Robert Birnbaum

Posted: May 24, 2005
© 2005 Robert Birnbaum
Images by Red Diaz/Duende Publishing

Courtney Angela Brkic is a first-generation American of Croatian descent. She studied archaeology as an undergraduate at the College of William and Mary and attended New York University, graduating from the MFA Program in writing. She has worked in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a forensic archeologist and for the United Nations International War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague and Physicians for Human Rights. She is the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to research women in Croatia's war-affected population, as well as a New York Times Fellowship. Her translations of Croatian Expressionist poet A.B. Simic have appeared in Modern Poetry in Translation. Her story collection, Stillness, was awarded a Whiting Writer’s Award. Brkic’s memoir, The Stone Fields: An Epitaph for the Living, which describes her time with the victims of Srebrenica, Bosnia, along with the history of her Croatian family during World War II, was published in 2004. In 1996, at the age of 23, she went to eastern Bosnia as part of a Physicians for Human Rights forensic team. She spent a month helping to exhume and identify the bodies of thousands of men and boys who were massacred by Serb forces the year before. Courtney Brkic currently teaches at Kenyon College in Ohio and is at work on her first novel.

Jonathan Yardley persuasively opines: “There are respects in which the story of Andelka and Josef [one of Brkic’s family’s stories in The Stone Fields] is more moving than that of all the unknown victims of ‘ethnic cleansing’ at Srebrenica; it is easier to become emotionally involved with a small cast of characters whom one comes to know than with a large one to which names cannot be attached. Either way, though, the story is the same. Courtney Angela Brkic tells it sensitively, sparely and with quiet passion.â€?

As you will find in the conversation below, she has gotten the Bosnian stories out of her system but certainly not the concerns that horrors like the Balkan tragedy occasioned.

Robert Birnbaum: Courtney Angela, uh—

Courtney Angela Brkic: [Pronounces] “Brkic.â€?

RB: I couldn't say it even after I looked in the pronunciation guide in The Stone Fields.

CAB: It's hard. And actually the Cs, there are two types of "chu"—there's a "chu" and a "che" which most people can't hear the difference between them—so the variations even within those letters are difficult.

RB: It is must be like Dutch—what's the language, Croatian?

CAB: It depends on who you ask. It's Croatian or Serbo Croatian or Bosnian Croatian, Serbian, and right now the politically correct thing is to say "BCS" for "Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian." In Croatia people say Croatian. And in my family we say Croatian.

RB: As in World War II in Holland, where the Dutch were good at ferreting out imposters because only Dutch people could say certain words that Croatian has the same character—is it true of your language?

CAB: You can definitely tell when someone didn't grow up speaking it. People can tell with me because I have a very American accent. So they can hear immediately in the intonations or the just the way I say vowels. The Dutch thing—I used to work for the War Crimes Tribunal for a short time and the tribunal was in a place called Scheveningen —

RB: [laughs] How do you know how to say that?

CAB: — right by the Hague. I had the taxi driver who said, "If you learn nothing else while you are in Holland, learn how to say "Scheveningen." It was used in the Second World War as code because nobody could pronounce it. I don't think I pronounce it correctly. You can [with Croatian] immediately tell where someone is from. And you'll have people coming from coastal regions like Dalmatia and they'll come to the city and live there many, many years but you can still hear in their accents. They never fully lose that.

RB: In the United States, we basically only discern Southern and perhaps various New York City dialects and the Boston accents. I wonder what sociological baggage it brings. I heard a caller to a sports radio show degrade a Red Sox [Trot Nixon] who was from North Carolina—he called him a redneck and all but said he was a inbred hillbilly.

CAB: Hill people, yeah. It's pretty bad, but it does bring such baggage. And I grew up in Virginia, and [if] you cross the border into West Virginia, according to the Virginians, the West Virginians are trash and hill people and there are all sorts of jokes running around about them. It is amazing how certain provenience—

RB: I got the sense from reading your books there is that kind of tribal regional animus in Croatia.

CAB: I'd say more regional than tribal. But in fact to the extent that in Dalmatia every island has its own identity, its own accents, its own dialect. There is one island called Vis, and on one side of the island is the town of Vis and on the other side is a town called Comeja. And we are talking five miles. When you pass over the large hill that separates them, it's as if you have gone to the other end of the country because the accent is so different. Of course, they make fun of each other.

RB: I guess the verb "balkanize" has done much to prevent people being taken seriously from that part of the world. Did that play a part in whether people took seriously the break up of Yugoslavia?

But there was this weird thing that happened in the war, and it happened in Croatia and Bosnia—that suddenly it wasn't considered racist or small-minded…
CAB: Absolutely. In a few of the stories I make a joke out of that. The words "internecine," "quagmire," "age-old ethnic conflict" — there was a point where many of us, if we read that one more time, we were going to hurt somebody.

RB: [laughs]

CAB: It was amazing how easy it became to just pull that out of people's bags and use those words. I tried to explain it to a lot of people I worked with in Zagreb. I worked with a lot of Americans; if you talk that way about a group of people in America, everybody thinks it's wrong: it's either racist or you are being a snob about a region. But there was this weird thing that happened in the war, and it happened in Croatia and Bosnia—that suddenly it wasn't considered racist or small-minded: it was this way of making everything digestible, and if people could explain to themselves, "Oh, well the reason this happened—these people are blood thirsty. They are absolutely warlike in their manner and their history. Look at their history. . . ," they would go and pull out the history books and they'd say, "Look at these years of battle and fighting. . . ." I always used to say to people, "Look at the rest of Europe. Look at Germany. Look at France. Look at Russia. Look all over the world. And there is no difference really between there and anywhere else. Once people thought they could explain it that way, it robbed the need to do anything about it. Or find a peaceful solution to it. That's just how they are. They are like that there."

RB: There seems to be a myth of peace about the post war (WWII). Supposedly up until September 11, 2001, we were living in a world that was relatively peaceful. Perhaps because I wasn't born in this country—

CAB: Where were you born?

RB: I was born in Germany. For some reason, I was always attuned to the —

CAB: — right, the larger picture.

RB: When people claim that the world was peaceful, I ask, "When was that? Which years?"

CAB: There is this feeling of—I don't know—vast optimism when people think of the '50s, and if you really look at it and pull it out and consider the South and consider a lot of things—not quite. I teach at Kenyan College [in Ohio] and one of the books I was teaching to my students is Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, and it's now the third time I've taught it—it's always amazing to me because they know about slavery. They know historically and understand the Civil War, but still there is this Gone with The Wind-esque picture a lot of people have in their minds and "slavery was, of course very, very bad," but to know to what extent things were as bad as they were—I actually had students who were very upset at me for teaching that book. But I had a lot of students for whom it had never occurred to them. We do that with the [twentieth] century and we look back and everything was roses.

RB: I was talking to Elizabeth Gaffney about her novel Metropolis, which takes place in late nineteenth-century New York City, and we came to talking about how badly history is taught in this country. It would seem that most people aren't interested in it — mostly because it's so badly taught. As a consequence that ends up allowing much mythology to take root, which is even more troubling.

CAB: It's true. We have such a rosy view of what our history is.

RB: For example, lynching continued to take place up until the 1950s.

CAB: Most people have no idea even on the small scales, in towns all over the country, maybe even not anything to the extent of lynchings, it's so unbelievable and that's what scares me the most right now. That we have this view of America that is so far from the reality of it. When I drove home for the winter holiday, I drove from Ohio back to DC and one of the radio stations that I caught just before I passed into Pennsylvania, in southeastern Ohio, was this call-in show where the woman was screaming about the Mexicans. In Ohio there are a lot of migrant farm workers and probably illegal aliens among them and certainly tensions between populations. For example, last year in Columbus [Ohio] there was a horrible house fire, an arson, in which something like ten people died, many of them children, and this woman on the radio was screaming about how . . . —always just one step away from outright hate speech, inciting viewers. She had one older lady caller and she said, "I have this lawn boy who comes and you have opened my eyes because I have never looked at this like that before. My gosh, you are probably right." This hate-mongering, unbelievable stuff. But even at a place like Columbus they are not looking at this fire in terms of what it means, what it indicates about the tensions that are at work. I find it very hard to believe.

RB: Even if you started teaching history in a personal narrative way, it wouldn't overcome the faith-based mythologies that are regnant. Tell people what the facts are they seem inclined to bath in the warm comfort of their beliefs.

CAB: When you have a straight lane to Jesus you don't need to hear any other opinions.

RB: I guess we wandered far afield here [which is okay]. Getting back to your books, are wolves a big part of Croatian culture?

CAB: Not so much. They are in the Balkans. All over Europe—sort of a motif and a theme.

RB: More so than any other animal?

CAB: Not more than any other animal.

RB: But in your books—

CAB: In me, they are very strong. The thing that has always struck me about them, particularly in Croatia and probably the reason I was most drawn to writing about them even tangentially was that they did a study in the time I was living in Croatia about trying to change people's points of view about wolves. Trying to let go of this almost medieval "Wolves are evil. Wolves are going to attack us and kill our children. Steal our chickens. Let's get them before they get us." Particularly in the region of Wecam where there were a lot of wolves that they are doing this, did this. What they found was slowly, slowly, slowly people are coming around. And they are realizing that wolves only attack when they are very hungry, frightened, or hurt in some way. They had to create an entire shift of paradigm in these regions and I found that very interesting.

RB: You do use a striking image when some one mentions a place “where wolves fuck.â€?

CAB: The word is "Vukojebina," and it means, out in the countryside, really the boondocks—Deliverance country, basically the Croatian version of Deliverance—and if you if you break it down it basically means "where Wolves fuck."

RB: The only other fiction that I am aware from that part of the world is Sarajevo Marlboro [by Miljenko Jergovic].

CAB: They are very good, those short stories.

RB: There hasn't been a groundswell of interest.

CAB: It's surprising because he is very well known in Bosnia Hertzogovinia. He is actually from Sarajevo. But lives today in Croatia and he is a very good writer and he is also a very good social critic. He used to write, and he may still, for one of the weekly magazines called Globus, and his articles were always . . . he had such a finger on the pulse of where politics were going, where current opinion was going, and he has many, many books. Actually, Sarajevo Marlboro is the only one published in the United States.

RB: By a wonderful publisher, Archipelago Books.

CAB: That book was available in the UK for years before it ever made it here. And it's a sad fact that interest among publishers here is just not there.

RB: How did you come to get published? Through NYU?

CAB: Not really. Completely — I like to think by hard work — but by dumb luck as well. And that was that while I was at NYU and in the period just after it. I tried to find an agent. Through every way possible. Friends, friends of friends.

RB: Friends of friends of friends?

CAB: [both laugh] Exactly. One of my professors sent me to his publishing house and it never worked out. The minute that someone feels that they are doing a favor for someone else it gets awkward. After a while I said, "I am not going to do this anymore. I'm sick of this. Forget it." Because too many times I was coming across people who wanted to give me advice. They didn't want to take me on but they wanted to advise me. And the advice they wanted to give me was "Don't write about this subject matter. Nobody will be interested in this subject matter."

RB: Meaning—

CAB: "Don't write about Bosnia. Don't write about Croatia. This war. Refugees. None of it." And short stories are a really tough sell, and these were two things—and what I was actually told in one place. You have a double kiss of death. Not only are you writing short stories, but also on a theme we just don't think we can sell. And that's what I heard over and over. Finally I decided, no more friends, no more friends of friends. And I went to the Writer's Market and I made a list of writers whose work I admired, found out who their agents were and just sent to them cold. And it just so happens that one of those agents read my work—a very early version of Stone Fields and said, "It's good and we'd be interested in the future but it's not ready yet." Which I knew. To which I said, "Funny you should say that because I also have these short stories." And I remember her saying, "Most probably we are not going to be interested." But I sent them along and she really liked them. And that's how it went.

RB: Even the people who you know have published great stuff will still dish out the conventional wisdom when they are talking to you. Success has such a serendipitous feel.

CAB: It could be on a Tuesday, they'd love something and on a Thursday they are in a bad mood, their coffee was cold and it's raining and things are just not going their way. I worked for an agent, Larry Schartzheim, for about ten months in Midtown, NY, and that is what I realized there. Some times you can have the best material in the world, but it will just miss. There was one manuscript for a West African woman—I don't remember her, name or the name of the manuscript. But I remember that the first line started off something like, "On the day I was born in my village one hundred miles away, my grandmother danced with a bowl of water balanced on her head." It was [with emphasis] the most arresting, amazing image. And I was so excited about this because, of course I wanted to undo the bad karma I was doing by writing rejection letters. I wanted to rescue someone from transom. I wanted to make the agents happy and it was very good writing. I remember I took it home and actually read it at home and I called my agent and I said, "Wow, have I got the manuscript for you. I am just blown away it's the best thing I have read since I have been here." And I put it in her office, put it right on top, marked with a stickie, and said this is the one to look at. And about five days later I say to her, "What did you think." And she says. "Ah, not so much."

RB: [laughs]

CAB: It was the point at which I realized that first of all, readers are very different.

RB: It's variable and subjective within our own experience. You can read something the first time and love it and the second time, not. Currently Sam Lypsite's buzz is about his being rejected twenty-seven times. People forget that Tibor Fischer was rejected fifty-six times. That seems to say that—

CAB: It is variable. Something else that is interesting, when I look at my own work depending on the day I look at it, I can love it and I can think it's the worst thing I have ever written. Hopefully somewhere between the two extremes is the truth.

RB: Well, certainly everyone needs an editor. So, I am not clear on the route you have taken. You studied as an archaeologist—

CAB: I studied anthropology and archaeology—

RB: —because?

CAB: It interested me. When went to school it was between studying English and studying anthropology. I went to the College of William and Mary in Virginia. My parents were very good about saying to me, "Study what you want to study. What you think you would enjoy and love."

RB: Unusual for immigrant parents.

CAB: It is very unusual. It took a lot of doing on their part. Particularly for my father who was battling this hope for stability for his children. But he said, "It would be lousy to study something that you are not interested in." So it came down to English and archaeology, and I decided, "I read anyway, voraciously. I read. I read. I read." But archeology, unless I study it I am not likely to go out and do it and learn about it. So that's how decided, and I minored in Spanish literature and language.

RB: I gather you spend a fair amount of time in Spain?

CAB: I spent a year.

RB: And the distance between undergraduate studies and NYU?

CAB: Quite a few years. Five to six years. And that was the period I was in Bosnia and living in Croatia and went to Holland to work at The Hague. Actually I knew that when I finished archaeology I was not so interested in immediately pursuing something but I thought in the future I might go back and do something with it. I worked for a while in America as a field archaeologist.

RB: I hadn't known that certain tools [in archaeology] were so important. I understand that in many pursuits one's tools are very important—

CAB: And you take a lot of pride in them.

RB: A certain brand of trowel?

CAB: Yeah. They are very important and you never want to be without a Marshalltown trowel, and it had better be sharpened perfectly and [chuckles] or else they will laugh you out of the field.

RB: You had training as field archaeologist but you went to Croatia as a forensic archaeologist.

CAB: I had a Fulbright to go to Croatia. And switched tracks completely at that point and had a sociology project to collect data on the war-affected population in Zagreb, specifically women. Women who had been displaced from Croatia or were refugees from Bosnia-Herzegovina and had a year to do that. I had already been getting off track before that point hence why I applied for that scholarship. And that changed my focus completely. That year led to the summer, the July and August I spent in Bosnia. And it just sort of piggybacked—one thing led to another, led to another, and while it doesn't seem like the straightest road, in a way it was utterly logical for me, at the time.

RB: Well, personal logic is—

CAB: Sometimes it is not so clear to other people, exactly. And at the end of that year with the refugees, I thought, "Here is a chance to bring my training and do something very concrete," which is why I went to Bosnia. They hired me as an archaeologist but they hired me for language reasons. They were very happy to have someone who spoke the language.

RB: And yet at the same time you had to hide your background from the locals.

CAB: Yeah.

RB: You worked with a couple of Latin Americans who had vast experience in forensic archaeology—which is a really morbid pursuit.

CAB: It is morbid and awful. When I was going out there I thought, "Maybe I will end up so interested by this that I will go and study this." The first day I knew that I was just not cut out for it.

RB: It could be that here is a real case of American exception—in the treatment of the dead. What I get from reading you is that the dead are ever present. They are there. Whereas Americans seem to have no problem burying them and that's that.

CAB: Not only that but with older people in America we do the same thing. We bury them before they are even dead. So by the time people die—the line in America between living and dead is so starkly drawn. It's not like that in the vast majority of the world. In quite a few of the places it's not like that—Latin America for sure, as in the Balkans. In that war, clearly one of the reasons it became so hard to draw the line was because people didn't know who was dead and who wasn't. The whole issue of missing persons, people were probably dead. But not definitely.

RB: Of course, in Latin America—actually Guatemala—was where “disappearingâ€? became a government-sponsored human rights abuse.

In that war, clearly one of the reasons it became so hard to draw the line was because people didn't know who was dead and who wasn't.
CAB: And the dirty war in Argentina.

RB: You observed that refugee women always think their missing will return.

CAB: The vast majority. Until they are shown evidence, it is a rare person in those circumstances who without evidence can say, "I really have to face the fact that most likely [they are dead]." Eventually they have to accept that fact. But it happens because so much time has gone by that it just would defy logic that the person would still be alive. Or some type of proof is given or the body is found or someone is tracked down who saw the person shot and buried or that sort of thing. But the women that I interviewed and the vast majority of them had missing people in either their immediate family or in the extended family.

RB: Is there a word for “closureâ€? in Croatian?

CAB: That does bear on this question, and I don't think so, to the best of my knowledge.

RB: There is an odd way in which we characterize a culture by the words they don't have.

CAB: Right. Actually women never explained it to me in that way. They always say it is better to know and interestingly that is a less absolute way of putting it than "closure." Because "closure" implies "that's it, I can move on," “shut the door,â€? draw that line starkly. I can move forward. For these women, it was more: "This situation is shitty. It would be slightly less shitty if I could know." But they did not fool themselves as to think that it would be good.

RB: "Closure" is one of those psychobabble words that is a pseudo-word, except we do believe, or have been impressed, that in this country we can do things that stand in opposition to human nature and experience.

CAB: Right.

RB: Getting back to the way your stories were accepted for publication, your stories—if someone asked me, "Do you want to read a story collection on Bosnia, about the war?" I would probably hem and haw. But your stories do validate the notion that in the hands of a skillful writer that any subject can be made interesting readable and compelling.

CAB: That was my hope. And the reason why I didn't listen. The thing I kept telling myself was that if I make it good enough, write this well enough, they will have no choice but to be interested in publishing this. I just refused to give up on that point. Any material, if it's treated in such a way that it's good, then it makes all the difference in the world.

RB: I was fascinated by the story "Surveillance." A story about a sniper/ photographer. He is kind of a spook and works for the State.

CAB: The state apparatus. Exactly.

RB: You turned it into such a personal tale even as you show how terrible it would be to live a society like that.

CAB: And he clearly feels he has a connection. I wrote that—one of the reasons was because and it's probably true of other immigrant communities, while there was still communism or socialism or however you want to call it—in the Croatian population in America, Italy and England, Germany there was this very deep-seated fear of Udbah [Unutras?nja Drz?avna Bezbednost], the state secret police. And Udbah infiltrated immigrant communities abroad. There were several high profile murders/assassinations that took place outside of Yugoslavia. And my dad and every person who immigrated during those years, whether it was logical or not, they had this fear of being observed. This fear that there were dossiers on them and their movements were being charted. During the war in Croatia and Bosnia there were re-awakened fears about this because many people will tell you that in many of these countries, not just in Yugoslavia, those state systems were never fully disassembled. The people who were these interrogators, the people who followed people and who roughed up the opposition, were underground anyway and it became very difficult to tease them out even after the fall of Communism.

RB: They gravitated toward the seats of power.

CAB: Exactly. It's hard to know whether that's a paranoid view of things or there is a grain of truth—probably both. What really fascinated me was what would that look like for that person, not some high level functionary but for some guy. This guy thinks he is an artist but he is not good enough, so he views his surveillance work in some sick way as his art. And I because I am very much against the black and white depiction of people and particularly when we talk about human evil and if it were only that simple then maybe we could do something about it. But it's not. To me it is very clear that you can have people who are going into Bosnia raping and murdering and putting in detention and they could go back to their homes and villages and farms and hug their wives.

RB: That does fall under the rubric of “the banality of evil.â€?

CAB: What is interesting is the American sense that war is something that happens elsewhere because we draw such black and white in personalities and view things in such stark terms. In the war in Bosnia and Croatia, I worked with many Americans and Western Europeans, and the general prevailing attitude was that this was a defect of a region. That evil could be so widespread and the same personality could be harbored — again, this idea of the banality of evil. And we are not very good at looking at ourselves in that light. In America, that's where we fall short.

RB: You make the point that most outsiders want to say that both sides were equally bad. Massacring seven thousand people was a response to someone else's evil deeds.

CAB: Right. Or this was an answer to an earlier crime. And that's wrong. It's not right to paint in black and white to look at these shining examples of humanity versus these evil people. That's clearly facile, and it would be facile in the Balkans, however—to my mind—and nobody has ever convinced me any different; and I base this very much on what I saw and experienced. There were vastly different degrees of war crimes that were going on by different sides. What I look at most is the degree to which the governments themselves were complicit in the crimes that were committed. So it becomes right to say—it is correct to say—that there were war crimes committed by all sides. Anybody who would say that there was not one soldier in our ranks who did something wrong, that's again clearly facile. But it greatly varies as far as the degree to which this was approved of or even ordered by higher levels And that's something when I was working at The Hague that was something that bothered me, because if we can agree that everyone is guilty and everyone bears more or less an equal guilt, then—

RB: Than no one is culpable. No judgment is necessary.

CAB: No one is really guilty and we can all move on and we can have closure.

RB: The Hutus and the Tutsis, they are all—

CAB: And it's that idea, they are Africans, they are in the jungle—these awful racist beliefs that people have.

RB: And so the African genocides were [and are] way under the radar.

CAB: Completely.

RB: The stories in Stillness, are they a collection or did you write them over a period of time and select a few for the book?

CAB: I have quite a few other stories. It happened in that period all of the stories that I wrote one way or another had to do with that region or the war. That was very much my focus. And therefore it made it easier later when I thought, "Hey, I should make a collection." I never wrote the stories with the idea of a published collection. It just happened that I couldn't write about other subjects. Those were the things I wanted to write about.

RB: Maybe it's obvious but you could have put Stillness at the beginning, the title story at the beginning—is it the conclusion for you.

CAB: For me it's the beginning and the ending. If I could have gotten away with putting it two places I would have. For me in many ways Vukovar was the beginning. It was not in chronological sense—there were situations that happened before that. It was the first time in that war, in 1991 that things became clear in terms of what the Yugoslav army and paramilitary groups were willing to do— that they were willing to massacre. They were willing to manipulate the media in the way that they did—and they did grotesquely. I talk about it as the test. That rump Yugoslavia — Serbia was able to effectively gauge the response they got about Vukowar [ was a thriving home to 50,000 Serbs and Croats before the war. Now, fewer than 3000 survivors remain] and Osijek was, "Oh, that's really awful but what can we do?" If there had been a different response, at the very beginning there would never have been war in Bosnia.

RB: I must confess that I was capable of being as stupid and oblivious as anyone else. I was aggravated about any attention being paid to Yugoslavia because I was upset about Central America—I saw it as racist that there seemed to be more concern about white Europeans than—

CAB: There was not much care about the Europeans, as it turns out. And generally I agree with you about Latin America; Bosnians and Croatians thought that their European qualities would save them. It's similar to what happened with the tsunami. Had the stories been only about the local populations, I am not sure that there would have been the response that there was. But so-and-so was on vacation and we can all imagine that and sympathize with that. In Croatia and Bosnia they thought, "People will see we are hard working people and we send our kids to school, we drive our cars the way they drive their cars in Italy just across the water." And they were in for a very nasty surprise. And in Bosnia, Islam—the fact of Islam—was used to a very large degree, which is amazing because Islam in Bosnia is unlike Islam anywhere else in the world, and there seemed top be very little understanding of that.

RB: It was a variation on �the only good Indian is a dead Indian� theme. What is going on with the [Slobodan] Milosevic trial? He seemes to be successful in dragging it out.

CAB: He's making a fool out of everybody there. He wanted to call Bill Clinton and he refused to have his lawyer represent him. Then he was going to represent himself. The last I heard, because I haven't followed it much lately—I washed my hands of it. I think he has a heart condition and for a while they were checking him out and seeing if he was fit to be on trial.

RB: Well, that's a problem because the U.S. refuses to become a signatory to the International Court, and when the spectacle of that trial is shown, it diminishes the ICC [International Criminal Court]. On the other hand—

CAB: —it's disgusting that we aren't willing to participate. In Kosovo, after the war, there was the case of a guy, an American soldier named Ronghi, and he raped and murdered an eleven-year-old Albanian girl, threw her body in a field. And I never heard anything after that. He may have been court marshaled but whatever he got was a slap on the wrist. And that's really wrong.

Editor's note: Reader Michael Moore corrects us, "In fact, Staff Sergeant Ronghi was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole."

RB: So you are teaching now?

It's similar to what happened with the tsunami. Had the stories been only about the local populations, I am not sure that there would have been the response that there was. But so-and-so was on vacation and we can all imagine that and sympathize with that.
CAB: No more human rights/translating/archaeology, none of that. Right now I teach and I write and it's a good balance.

RB: What city is Kenyon College in?

CAB: It's in a very tiny town called Gambeer. It's smack in the middle [of Ohio], an hour and a half northeast of Columbus. Cincinnati is three and a half hours, Cleveland is two in the other direction.

RB: Are you surprised that I know or care anything about Ohio?

CAB: [laughs] Most people do not—

RB: I grew up in Chicago, so the Midwest in not a foreign land to me.

CAB: There's an article in [March 2005] Vanity Fair about Kenyon [because] of the election, because it boasted the longest lines in the country—eleven hours my students waited to vote.

RB: Did you see the troops of writers that came through Ohio? Steven Elliott and Nick Flynn?

CAB: I didn't see any of them, but a group did come to Kenyon College and had a rally. I saw John Kerry when he came and we all showed up and waved our signs. There were a lot of people who came to the state. The Vanity Fair article raises a lot of questions. There are many outstanding questions about Ohio and how things went.

RB: I recently saw the documentary Unprecedented, which was about the Florida electoral debacle. And I was beyond amazed that the issue was dealt with in this way and that whole country did not demand a better process for resolution. I can't say what the truth was but the way the issue went away so quickly—it wasn't dealt with.

CAB: Just like in Ohio, just like this. What the article talks about and at the time a lot was not made of this fact—in Cleveland, in districts that were working class or had greater numbers of non-whites registered to vote, the lines were impossibly long. People could not afford to take off work and many people ended up having to leave the lines. At Kenyan there were all sorts of games being played through the Secretary of State's office, telling the students they were not allowed to vote there, all sorts of things because they knew they would vote Democrat. What amazes me is how quietly everybody, afterwards, has gone back to business as usual. To a certain extent we need to—what 's the alternative? But I can't believe that they didn't figure out the voting machines between the last time and this time. Four years they had to figure things out. According to the article there are some very specific things that should be investigated.

RB: So you have left you troubled youth behind—you're teaching?

CAB: I did, I did. Happily, I'm not so sure. I miss New York.

RB: Now the tortuous life of being a writer. What else do you see in your future?

CAB: Writing some more. To tell you the truth and I am writing a series of articles about it now; the thing that interests me right now is this American moment that we are living in. It's as significant as anything else I have written about. And the fact that one of the stories I wrote a few weeks ago is about a translator in Iraq. I don't know if you saw the news story about the woman who was in the interrogation room and was translating for these American soldiers—and they can't figure it out, but it seems that soldiers were joking around and one pulled out his pistol and shot her in the head. Then tried to cover it up [this story has recently been accepted in the forthcoming second volume of Stephen Elliott’s Politically Inspired anthology.]

RB: Yow. No, I hadn't heard that one.

CAB: There was almost not a blip about this. You can find it if you go to Reuters. The Washington Post had something about it because she did some translating for them. But it went so far under the radar—to me that's unbelievable.

RB: Writing a story?

CAB: A fiction, but inspired by this. Having to do with something like this that could happen. So that's what I am working on right now, and being in Ohio is not a bad thing. I'm there on a limited contract. I'll go away in May and come back for one more year. It's not right to construe the state [Ohio] as everyone thinks this way. It's far more complicated than that—there are variations of people that are there. But I still think there are a lot of things happening there that are very disturbing, that are trends demonstrating, at least to me, the direction in which we are headed. I'd like to write about those things.

RB: What about a novel?

CAB: I am also working on a novel. I have the ideas for a novel and I would like to write a novel. I am done with the war. Between the Stone Fields and Stillness I did what I wanted to do with that and said what I wanted to say. I have also—not come to terms with things, but time has passed and it's always going to be important to me, and probably in some way I will always write about it, but I am also ready to talk about other things. I would also like to write a book about immigration, write a novel about immigration from a woman's point of view who comes to America in the post-9/11 world, and who comes as an illegal immigrant.

RB: I look forward to it, and I hope we meet again.

CAB: I hope so.

Robert Birnbaum, a bookish journalist, was born in Germany, grew up in Chicago, lived for too many years in Boston. He is editor-at-large at Identitytheory.com and something or other at The Morning News. He lives in New Hampshire with blonde Labrador, Rosie. Thanks for asking.
Note: Featured author in November 2000
E-mail: reddiaz@aol.com

http://www.identitytheory.com/interviews/birnbaum159.php

Ana Petercic Buzancic - Art Around the Neck

My pleasure in silk painting is in creating accessories

that complement everyday wear and make it unique.

One of a kind Scarf

www.artaroundtheneck.com

Ana Petercic Buzancic

 

Growing up surrounded by stage art and costumes influenced my creative direction.
Color choice and composition are determined during involvement with the process of making the piece. My design scheme--partly figurative and naturalistic, partly abstract--uses characteristic swirls combined with geometric patterns and are intensely saturated with color. My pleasure in silk painting is in creating accessories that compliment everyday wear and make it unique.

I grew up in Zagreb, Croatia in an artistic family. My mother was a ballerina and my father an actor. Growing up surrounded by stage art and costumes has influenced my creative direction. I studied fashion and design at University in Zagreb and subsequently worked as costume designer.
Shortly thereafter I began painting on silk, realizing my interest in depicting the natural beauty of my country trough the texture and fluidity of the fabric. In 1993 moved to Chicago where I continued to develop and hone my talents as a fiber artist.

I think my work reflects the boldness and drama of theater. When faced with canvas, a blank piece of silk, I think how to incorporate a variety of tones that will accent the colors worn in everyday clothing and yet enhance the overall effect.

Both abstract and figurative, my designs are intensely saturated with color.
Using “sertiâ€? the French approach to fabric design, combined with tie-resist, shibori and block printing, I create art to wear.

My pleasure in silk painting is in creating accessories that complement everyday wear and make it unique.

Contact:
phone: 847-676-1763
anasilkdesign@comcast.net

Corpus separatum
Povijesni krug optuzbi

Josip JOVI

Na najnovije prosirenje optuznica koje su stigle iz Haaga i kojima se optuzuju za smisljeni zlo ina ki pothvat cijeli vojni i drzavni vrh, vojska, stranke, znani i neznani, prakti ki narod u cjelini, vodei su politi ari reagirali razli ito. Ivo Sanader je priznao kako su ovaj put doista prijeene sve granice, Ra an je optuzbu nazvao apsurdnom, dok je Stjepan Mesi u svom stilu vjerodostojnog agenta Carle del Ponte samo konstatirao kako "optuznica nije bas najprihvatljivija". Iznenaenja zapravo nema, bit prosirene optuznice sadrzana je i u svim ranijim optuzbama, na sto su ina e upozoravali objektivni promatra i, koji su, meutim, redovito proglasavani paranoicima, desni arima i izolacionistima. Sada svi odjednom vide kako iz optuznice jasno proizlazi da je Oluja bila nelegitimna vojna akcija, kao sto je, naravno, nelegitimno i sve sto je proisteklo iz nje.
U Splitu smo isti dan kad je stigla optuznica morali otrpjeti optuzbu druge vrste i tezine, ali iste funkcije. Jacques Wunenburger, izaslanik Europske komisije na okruglom stolu posveenom Europi cijeloj je domaoj javnosti skresao u brk stilom kakvom nije pribjegavao ni Josip Broz, kako ovdje ima previse nacionalizma i euroskepticizma, premalo odusevljenja EU-u. Naravno, on nikada kao glasnogovornik slabo zamaskiranih imperijalnih interesa nee razumjeti kako je euroskepticizam odgovor na aroganciju i drskost EU birokracije kakvu je upravo on demonstrirao. I kako je nacionalizam obrambeni mehanizam malih naroda i, s druge strane, kako je nacionalizam etiketa kojom moni i bogati nastoje zbrisati i diskvalificirati slabe i siromasne. Slabasni odgovor premijera Sanadera sveo otprilike na slijedee: Dragi moj Jacques, nista vi ne brinite, bit e bolje, nagurat emo mi ovih pedeset na sedamdeset pet posto, kad za to doe vrijeme.
I dok Amerikanci u Beogradu uru ise Trumanovo visoko odlikovanje obitelji Draze Mihailovia, osvjedo enog borca protiv fasista, Hrvata i Muslimana, u Brooklynu, u Memorialnom parku holokausta Institut za istrazivanje zlo ina u Jasenovcu koji su osnovale tamosnje srpske i zidovske zajednice podigose spomen-obiljezje na kojemu pise kako je u tom ustaskom logoru pogubljeno stotine tisua Srba, Zidova, Roma i ostalih. I dok je odli je Drazi popraeno laganim prosvjednim notama iz Zagreba, newyorski spomenik ostao je bez krika i bijesa. Cijelu pri u nadopunila je izvjestiteljica CNN-a, reporterka Cristiane Amanpour, povezavsi u izvjesu s pogreba Ivana Pavla II. kardinala Stepinca s ustaskim rezimom, i opet bez odgovarajue reakcije s hrvatske strane.
I obiljezavanje sezdesete obljetnice pobjede nad fasizmom u samoj Hrvatskoj, slu ajno ili ne, uklopilo se u ukupni scenarij izravnih i neizravnih optuzbi, ime kao da se zatvara jedan povijesni krug iz kojega nam se ne da izii. Dok su balti ki i neki isto noeuropski narodi i njihovi voe jasno kazali kako je oslobaanje od fasizma bio po etak jedne druge okupacije, jedne druge tiranije, vala zlo ina i terora, sto se nesumnjivo i s Hrvatskom dogodilo, u nas je antifasizam upravo izjedna en s komunizmom, kult druga Tita visoko je iznova uzdignut, ulazak u Zagreb u partizane preobu enih etnika koji su sijali smrt i nasilje predstavljen je kao osloboenje i pobjedu hrvatskog antifasizma. itavoj stvari svoj je pe at dao upravo predsjednik drzave Stjepan Mesi, za kojega je sto tisua ubijenih nemonih ljudi tek incident. Njegovo ak i krajnje relativizirano spominjanje zlo ina u Bleiburgu naislo je na znakovitu sutnju i jasno neodobravanje okupljenih na sve anoj akademiji u dvorani Vatroslav Lisinski, ispunjenoj antifasistima druge generacije, koji su na kraju rata mogli imati tek petnaest godina. Nakon svake provokativne tvrdnje koja je mogla zadovoljiti samo okupljene, Mesi bi duboko i s o itom nelagodom usmrknuo, verbalno se snazno zauzimajui za istinu, rukovoen valjda onom izjavom starog cinika Winstona Churchilla, koji re e kako je istina suvise vazna da se ne bi stitila lazima. Ideja jugoslavenskog patriotizma ostala je, za sada, lebdjeti negdje u zraku, jer za nju jos nisu sazreli svi uvjeti. Zato je u prvom redu sjedio Budimir Lon ar, Predsjednikov specijalni savjetnik, neko prvi borac protiv emigracije i ministar vanjskih poslova Jugoslavije dok je vojska ove drzave razarala Vukovar.
Taj prenaglaseno intonirani govor o "antifasizmu", uz jasno orkestriranu sugestiju kako nacionalizam, fasizam i ustastvo kao glavni neprijatelji jos nisu pobijeeni, te uz preskakanje svih trauma i uz optuzivanje istinskog oslobodila kog, Domovinskog rata, taj govor se doima kao poziv ili ak kao nalog za povratak u stare okvire. A nas politi ki vrh kao da svemu tome pomaze ili kao da ne vidi o emu se tu radi.
 

The people who saved aviators did so under tremendous personal risk

I would like to share with you the following excerpt from the book "Partizanske veze - Kopno - Otok Krk - Srednjodalmatinski otoci od 1941 do 1945" ["Partisan Ties: Mainland - Krk Island - Mid-Dalmatian Islands From 1941 to 1945], Rijeka: Adamic, 1999. The booklet contains the proceedings of a round table on the topic held on Krk on June 25, 1997.

It should be noted that Krk was under Axis occupation - first annexed by Italy in 1941, it came under German military administration in late 1943. This was not Partisan controlled territory so that the actions taken to save Allied pilots was done in a traditional, "underground" manner.

One of the individuals mentioned in the following excerpt is Ivo Albaneze from Omisalj, Krk. To give one an idea of the complexity of the war in Croatia, Ivo was a Partisan. His brother, Anton "Toto" Albaneze, is my uncle and was in the Domobrans. Anton survived the Bleiburg death march. Their 3rd brother (who's name I don't recall off hand) fought in both the Domobrans and Partisans and was killed as a Partisan in Bosnia.

The following was stated by Ivan Nino Maricic:

"If we weren't so good, then today we would not have here with us, after 55 years, the son of a saved American pilot who came to see the place where his father was saved and where he could thank this people. I was a participant in the effort by chance, as was Ivo Albaneze, when this group of seven or eight fell [to earth] here and we transported them out of here. I remember the one without legs, who fell in Gabonjina [on Krk], that Dr. Variola amputed his leg, that he laid down on some blue mattress, that I gave him tea, that we took him to Olib [Island] where a ship, an amphibious craft, came for him and took him further on. A similar situation occurred at Hlama where one soldier fell from a bombardier [the author calls it a "lajting (layting?) bomardier] and the women from Baska draga took him in. He was taken to Baska via the late Ivo Derecinovic,as well as the home of Ivo Volaric, and he was accompanied by Ivo Dorcic, Nino Tic, Dusan Dekanic and Bonefacic who took him to Rab and from Rab he succeeded in getting to Olib. It was because of [helping him] that the Sersic family - Ivan and Marija - ended up in Dachau." [pp. 79-80] [see however below concerning the Sersic family]

Franjo Orlic gives some further details, noting that the person who was coming to Krk and specifically to Kornic [near Punat] was David Clied, the son of Henry. According to Orlic, Henry was the commander of a "Flying Fortress" which crashed near Krk. [p. 77].

For Brian Gallagher's benefit in the UK, I note that Maksim Blazic, another participant at the roundtable, noted that in Fall 1944 Eugen Domijan from Dramalj (near Crikvenica) led three English paratroopers "to the little port of Vodna from where they were taken to Vis Island via Krk." [p. 24]

Marijan Lindaric remembered the following: "In the western area of Krk English and American pilots came to the ground who were saved and taken care of and whose safe return to their bases was organized by our people. It must be stated that this was a difficult task as many of them were injured. Saving eight aviators from the sea, whose craft fell in the water between Krk and Cres, was an especially dangerous task as it took place during the day. The injured were taken to the Dobrinj area [on Krk] by hand. Ivan Zec, Ivan Jurasic, Nikola Marulic, Kuzam Franolic, Josip Lindaric, Petar Kosic and many others participated in these actions." [p. 39]

I note that Maricic's story concerning the Sersic family on Rab may have resulted from some confusion on his part. According to Orfeo Ticac's article in Zbornik drugog pomorskog obalnog sektora Mornarice NOVJ, Rijeka, 1975, Ticac discusses the Sersic family's role in protecting American intelligence officers. These three men were sent to Rab sometime in early 1944. He was on Vis and he accompanied three American intelligence officers ("of Yugoslav descent," according to Ticac) to Rab. There they established a radio relay station with their headquarters in Italy. However, in March 1944 the Germans occupied the island and the work of the station came to an end. The Americans were hidden in the Sersic home and ultimately taken to safety. However, a German raid on the house uncovered certain material which the Americans were not able to take with them. Ivan and Franka Sersic were arrested and taken to Dachau where they survived. [pp. 62-63].

The people who saved these aviators did so under tremendous personal risk. Unlike the Chetniks, they did not collaborate with the Nazis while saving pilots. I am sure we can find hundreds of examples of like actions taken by ordinary Croats during the War.

John Kraljic

Charles Billich at the UN - Humanity United

Dear Mr. Nenad Bach,

I hope the following information will be useful for the purposes of the Croatian community.

Croatian/Australian artist Charles Billich is being sponsored by the United
Nations Staff Recreation Council's Friendship Club and permanent missions
of Croatia and Australia for an art exhibit entitled, Humanity United, in
the UN Secretariat Lobby from 14-25 June 2004. The opening reception will
take place on Tuesday 15 June from 6.30 - 8.30 pm.

Mr. Billich was commissioned to paint East Timor's official independence
painting. He was also commissioned to paint a piece in honor of the 50th
anniversary of the International Committee of the Red Cross that now hangs
at that organization's Headquarters, his New York Cityscape hangs in the
Port Authority, he presented a painting to the Pope, and this artist has an
impressive CV of accolades that include Australia's official Olympic
Artist and 2000 Sports Artist of the Year. He has amazing talent - stamps
of his terra cotta soldiers are currently in use in China .

Mr. Billich's official website will provide more detailed information at
www.billich.com.au .

If any other information is needed, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,
Claudia
_______________________

Claudia Abate
Conference Officer
Meeting Servicing Unit
UN Room S1B-02

212-963-9855
abate@un.org

"My Head Lost into the Stars" by Vlasta Mijac

vlasta.mijac@st.htnet.hr