Croatian History

Darko Zubrinic's pages that amazed all of us. Now under one domain namewww.CroatianHistory.net. I bought this address and passed it onto Darko, because nobody that I know deserves it more than him. Go inside this labyrinth of Croatian DNA...History, Art, Music, Science... almost everything. It's up to you who read this somewhere around the world to make it even better and more interesting. Enjoy,

Nenad Bach

P.S. Here is Darko's letter. Now you have a place to send your old photos that are part of Croatian History. In a near future, we have to create mirror sites on a few more continents of this incredible work of passion and knowledge. Congratulations Darko. You are our Croatian pride. Iliti Odlikas, kak bi to ja rekel.

Croatian History will be linked on a first page of CROWN in less then a week.

Dreams...

Dear reader, many people have helped me to create these web pages, seeAcknowledgements. I kindly ask You the following:

• Any photo or information related to history of Croats in general would be welcome. I am in particular interested in old photos of Croatian cultural organizations throughout the world. For example photo of old Croatian tamburitza players (and not only tamburitza players) would be very interesting.
• I am very interested in any information (including photos) of cultural society Hrvatska zena (Croatian Woman), founded in 1920's in Zagreb, forbidden from 1945 till 1990 by ex-Yugoslavia, but some of its branches, like the one in Chicago, USA, continued to exist. I know that there existed (or even still exists) Hrvatska zena in Punta Arenas, on the very south of Chile.
• I am very interested in any photo of Anthony Lucas (Antun Lucic from Split), with whom started the first massive production of oil and petroleum in the world.
• Some of the best church frescos in the USA are in Croatian churches, painted by Maxo Vanka. I would deeply appreciate a photo.
• One of the greatest mathematicians in history is Leonhard Euler (18th century). I have information that he was communicating in written with Rugjer Boskovic, and that his letters are kept in Boskovic Archives at the Rare Books library in Berkeley, University of California, USA. It would be extremely interesting to translate some of this letters into English and Croatian.

My e-mail is darko.zubrinicYY@YYfer.hr (please, remove Y's; don't ask me why). In case of doubt that Your mail has not reached me, please, go to Nenad Bach's CROWN, and submit Your message there.

Croatia - its History, Culture and Science
 

CROATIAN BOOK CLUB OF NEW YORK

A Croatian Book Club is being organized in New York City to promote Croatian culture. Our club offers readers the opportunity to participate in spirited discussions considering diverse viewpoints about unique subject material.

Each month, the facilitator will choose a "book of the month" that will be read by members in advance and discussed later at the monthly meeting. The monthly meeting will last from approximately 1-3 hours, depending on the vitality of the discussion, size of the group and availability of space.

Below is a partial list of books that will be discussed:

" "The Stone Fields" by Courtney Angela Brkic
" "Plum Brandy - Croatian Journeys" by Josip Novakovic
" "How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed" by Slavenka Drakulic
" "Neither Red nor Dead" by Stevo Julius
" "The Museum of Unconditional Surrender" by Dubravka Ugresic
" "The Banquet in Blitva" by Miroslav Krleza
" "The Turk and My Mother" by Mary Helen Stefaniak
" "Sarajevo Marlboro" by Miljenko Jergovic
" "Croatian Tales of Long Ago" by Ivana Brlic Mazuranic
" "Anna Marinkovich" by Edward Ifkovic
" "Carrying the Farm on Her Back - A portrait of Women in a Croatian Village" by Eva Skold Westerlind
" "Healing the Heart of Croatia" by Joseph Kerrigan
" "Goodby Dear Old Homeland" by Yasna Sikic Hood
" "American Dream - a Guy from Croatia" by Boris Miksic
" "Thorn Lace - Mojmir - A Migrant's Lot" by Ina Vukic
" "Moments of Truth: Real Stories of Life Changing Inspiration" Mike Celizic
" "The Labyrinth" by Blanka Raguz
" "You're Hired: How to Succeed in Business and Life from the Winner of the Apprentice" by Bill Rancic
" "Lovers and Madmen - a True Story of Passion, Politics and Air Piracy" by Julienne Eden Busic
" "Fix Our United States" by Krist (Chris) Novoselic
" Bogdan Radica - out of print


Most of the above books are available free of charge at the Public Library or may be purchased at www.amazon.com .

Book Club discussion questions and topics:

" What specific themes did the author emphasize throughout the book? What do you think he or she is trying to convey to the reader?
" Do the characters seem real and believable? Can you relate to their predicaments? To what extent do they remind you of yourself or someone you know?
" What was unique about the setting of the book and how did it enhance or take away from the story?
" How do characters change or evolve throughout the course of the story? What events trigger such changes?
" In what ways do the events in the books reveal evidence of the author's world view?
" Did certain parts of the book make you uncomfortable? If so, why did you feel that way? Did this lead to a new understanding or awareness of some aspect of your life you might not have thought about before?
" What did you find surprising about the facts introduced in this book?
" How has reading this book changed your opinion of a certain person or topic?
" Does the author present information in a way that is interesting and insightful, and if so, how does she or he achieve this?
" If the author is writing on a controversial issue, does he or she give proper consideration to all sides of the debate? Does he or she seem to have a bias?
" How has the book increased your interest in the subject matter?

Meeting place: Croatian Cultural Center
Address: 502 West 41st Street, New York,NY (between 10th & 11th avenues)
Dates: Every Third Wednesday in the month, February 16th, 05 at 6 p.m.
First book selection: "The Stone Fields" by Courtney Angela Brkic

Please read the book in advance.

Facilitator:

Katarina Tepesh is a member of the International Women's Writing Guild. Her two essays, "Father's Funeral" and "Babin Kuk" were published in "Caprice" and "Quiet Mountain Essays." Short story, "Anica, a Mail Order Bride from Croatia" has been published on the CROWN www.CroatianWorld.net . Katarina is also a member of the International Toastmasters Club, promoting writing, public speaking and leadership skills. Katarina comes from Zagorje region and now lives in New York City.

If you are interested in joining The Croatian Book Club (CBC) of New York, please contact Katarina by email tepeshk@aol.com  or telephone 212-744-1985.

"BETWEEN THE CROSS AND THE HALF-MOON"

At the University Library of Leiden, January 20th - February 20th 2005.

Mr. Ivo Dubravcic from Delft, The Netherlands, is the greatest
Croatian collectionar of old books and rarities, and well known
among specialists in Croatia. Numerous books related to Croatia
have been saved due to his information and help, and many of
them are thanks to his efforts in Croatia (in National and University
Library in Zagreb, Croatian State Archives etc.). He is also well
known among collectionars of books throughout Europe.

Though retired, he is still very active with his hobby of collecting
old books, which started thirty five years ago. I had a luck to be
acquainted with this very nice person two years ago in Zagreb,
and we had discussions about Croatian Glagolitic books. To may great
surprise, I learned from him that he is in possession of several
glagolitic rarities himself in Delft, for example a book
from the Senj Glagolitic printing house dating from 1508,
which was thus 25th country except Croatia, which keeps Croatian
glagolitic books. See for more details

www.croatianhistory.net/etf/novi.html

The exhbition of books of Mr. Ivo Dubravcic will be held under significant
title "BETWEEN THE CROSS AND THE HALF-MOON", and will be opened
at the University Library of Leiden, January 20th 2005.
The exhbition will opened until February 20th.

It will be opened by the vice-president of the University Library
Mr. Linmans, in the presence of many distinguished guests,
including the Embassy of Croatia in the Hague. We remind that
the city of Leiden is just about 15km from the Hague.
Mr. Dubravcic prepared together with his colleagues, outstanding scholars
(also from Croatia) the accompanying guidebook with articles dealing
with the exhibition and with elements of the history of Croatian culture.

I take this opportunity to express my deep gratitude to Mr. Nenad Bach
for all painstaking efforts with the CROWN, and with

www.croatianhistory.net

Those interested in the history of Croatian books will find a lots
of information on this web.

Many greetings from Zagreb to all visitors of CROWN,

Darko Zubrinic
University of Zagreb
Croatia

CROATIAN CULTURAL THURSDAYS

& HKD NAPREDAK - NEW YORK

SPONSOR CONCERT
By

JAMA JANDROKOVIC - soprano
 

http://www.jamajandrokovic.com/

Booking: info@jamajandrokovic.com
Personal Message: jama@jamajandrokovic.com

 

Thursday, January 20, 2005 at 7:00 PM
Croatian Cultural Center, Sts. Cyril & Methodius Church - large auditorium
502 West 41st Street (between 10th and 11th avenues)
New York, NY

Reception to follow

For additional information contact: kdeletis@excite.com

Ms. Soyeon Kim will accompany Ms. Jandrokovic on a piano. The program will feature works by American and Croatian composers. Ms. Jandrokovic will be touring Croatia and Germany next month, performing in Ivanic Grad, Zagreb, Samobor, Rovinj, Munich and Berlin.

BIOGRAPHIES:

JAMA JANDROKOVIC’s silvery voice and interpretive sincerity shine in performances of art song, her first musical love. The young American soprano has concertized throughout the United States, and has been heard at New York venues such as Steinway Hall, Nicholas Roerich Museum, Kosciuszko Foundation, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall.
Ms. Jandrokovic begins 2005 by making her European debut with a concert tour of Croatia, culminating in a recital in the capital of Zagreb, then on to recitals in Germany at the Gasteig in Munich and the Konzerthaus in Berlin. In New York City, Ms. Jandrokovic will sing concerts at Steinway Hall and Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Early fall of 2005 will see the release of Ms. Jandrokovic’s debut recording, “Sweet, Stay Awhileâ€? featuring songs of John Dowland and Henry Purcell.
Ms. Jandrokovic’s Alice Tully Hall engagement marks her debut performance at the prestigious venue as both singer and poet. The artist will collaborate with leading American composers Lori Laitman, Luna Pearl Woolf and the 2004 Pulitzer Prize winner for music, Paul Moravec, to present the world premiere of three new song cycles, written for Ms. Jandrokovic, based upon her collection of poetry, Five Lovers. The Five Lovers concert will be recorded and released in 2006.

SOYEON KIM, equally at home with vocal and instrumental repertoire, has performed as a solo and collaborative pianist throughout her home country of Korea and in the United States. Ms. Kim began her studies in Korea and at the age fifteen gave her professional debut with the Taejeon Chamber Orchestra performing the Mozart Piano Concerto. As a young student, she won many competitions, including First Prize in the Seoul National Teacher's College Piano Competition, Top Prize in the Teenager Piano Competition, Laureate in the Korea Festival Ensemble Chamber Music Competition and a fellowship at the New Triad Foundation in New York City.
She received her training at Seoul National University in solo piano performance where she was introduced to the collaborative aspect of performing and began working with chamber music ensembles and vocalists. Ms. Kim has participated frequently in master classes with such artists as Martin Katz, Edgar Meyer, Robert McDonald, Brian Zeger, Lauren Flanigan, Anna Moffo, Eleonore Schoenfeld, Betty Allen, and Daniel Pollack. Ms. Kim’s current focus is the art of accompanying and chamber music at the Manhattan School of Music in New York City, where she is pursuing her doctoral degree and studies with Heasook Rhee.

Smoldering

Understanding her father -- and his war-ravaged Sarajevo childhood -- meant following his trail of secrets

By Courtney Angela Brkic
Sunday, January 16, 2005; Page W21

The article can be read at:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A1882-2005Jan11.html

FOUR DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS 2003, when my family was together for the holidays, a fire started on the first floor of my parents' Arlington home. It moved rapidly across several oil-painted walls, including the one on which our mother had recorded our heights throughout our childhood. This happened in the middle of the night, and we converged on the first floor from different parts of the house, squinting and trying to make sense of the rooms filling with thick, black smoke. My brother, Andrew, pushed his wife, my mother and me out the front door. My father, however, would not be budged. He moved like a sleepwalker, repeatedly filling a kitchen pot with water and throwing it at the flames.

My mother had the presence of mind to grab the cordless phone on her way out the front door and dial 911. "Get everyone out of the house now," the dispatcher told her with unfathomable calm. "The fire department is on its way." My father refused to leave, even as Andrew returned to pull him to the front door. I screamed at such a hysterical pitch that
the dispatcher asked my mother, "Why is that woman screaming like that?" Later my brother said it was as if our father was in a trance. He did not make eye contact, nor did he give any indication that he heard my screams or Andrew's altogether calmer entreaties. He seemed to exist somewhere beyond our reach, but the intent look on his face made one thing clear: He would not abandon the house willingly. Finally, my brother picked him up and dragged him outside.

I SPENT MUCH OF LAST YEAR TRYING TO MAKE SENSE OF THAT NIGHT. How could my father, an otherwise sane man, have placed his

life in such jeopardy? Where was his instinct for survival? Where was the common sense that had helped him survive a world war, communism and the loss of those he loved?

My father was born Berislav Brkic in 1929. He escaped Yugoslavia in 1959, unwilling to join the Communist Party and unable to live the silent life that would ensure survival there. He spent two years in Germany as a political refugee before coming to

the United States, where he landed in New York with a planeload of other refugees at what was then Idlewild Airport. He had approximately $50 to his name. Immigrants to the United States have tended to remain in communities that speak their language and share their customs. My father, though, did not settle near the Croatian population in New York, nor the ones in

Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago or any other urban center where specialty stores stocked pickled cabbage or Kras chocolate. New York was too busy for him; he found the height and density of its city blocks suffocating, and the constant throngs of people unnerved him. Almost immediately, he moved to Washington, where his brother later joined him. The way he tells it, they liked the wide boulevards, the low buildings and the cherry blossoms.

His was the typical immigrant fantasy of America, and the first few months of his immigrant's life here were typically disillusioning. He arrived before the civil rights movement, when schools and drinking fountains were still segregated. While he was on a trip to Texas, a restaurant refused to serve him because they thought he was Mexican. And although his English was proficient, his early professional life in America was frustrating. A respected radio playwright in Zagreb and a sound engineer for Armed Forces Radio in Germany, he worked as a waiter, car salesman and Peoples Drug Store cashier in Washington.

Five years after arriving here, he had changed his first name to Barry, saved enough money to open a film production company in Georgetown and, not long after having made the transition from newcomer to successful U.S. citizen, met my mother, Brigitte, at a District swimming pool. I have often marveled at how my father retained the core of his immigrant's vision of America, even as its edges eroded. When my brother and I were growing up, my father's mantra was: "I left so my children could be free." We invariably met this statement with grins and eye-rolling. Lacking a basis for comparison, we could not fully grasp its meaning. As we got older and began to muse over our future professions, my father pointed to the fact that Americans could choose their own educational paths. A person could work hard and succeed here. It was a cause-and-effect relationship that never failed to astound him.

I have heard that Americans move an average of 12 times in their lives, but my parents, neither of them born in the United States (my mother was born in Germany but raised in England), have lived in that same house in Arlington for 30 years. It is not of the best construction and tends to shudder when trucks pass; the ceilings have cracked from those reverberations. Its floors and walls display scars that do not lend themselves to superficial repair; for years children have hung from its banisters and chipped its plaster with airborne projectiles. The family dog (dead two years, his ashes buried in the garden) grooved the wooden floors with his paws during dizzying revolutions around the house. The centerpiece of a hard-won and commonly held American dream, the house is where their children laughed, fought and shouted with thoroughly American accents. It is also a house in which hunger and fear were alien concepts, a feat for a man who had himself been acquainted with both.

MY FATHER WAS OBSESSED WITH PROVIDING HAPPY CHILDHOODS FOR MY BROTHER AND ME. The middle-class neighborhood where I grew up

was safe, and we had a host of forgiving dogwood trees to climb in our garden. In addition to providing us with the usual

consumer trappings of an American childhood, our artistically leaning parents would often make our gifts: wooden dollhouses,

a sandbox with benches at each end, a clubhouse complete with skylight, Easter eggs painted intricately with scenes from our

favorite children's books.

Our father told us that he sometimes dreamed about the happy periods in his own Sarajevo childhood, vastly different from our

own. He cannot remember the village in Herzegovina where he was born or the father who died while he was still a toddler, but

he remembers the city he moved to as a child. Our photograph albums show him as a slender, dark-eyed boy with a wide smile,

sledding with his younger brother in Sarajevo's Veliki Park. Even in the black-and-white pictures you can see the fogged

breath and flushed cheeks of the exuberant 9- and 7-year-olds. There are photographs of picnics, of hikes where they gathered

wild strawberries and of summer trips to Gradac on the Adriatic Coast. In one of the last, the photographer has followed my

then-27-year-old grandmother into the sea, where she floats like a grinning mermaid.

Certain events have a way of bisecting time, of splitting recollection between "the years before" and "the years after." The

Second World War splits my father's photographs in this way, though we recognized that bookmark only vaguely as we were

growing up. There are almost no photographs from the war years, and then, suddenly, my father appears at 16, proudly

displaying dark fuzz on his upper lip. In the postwar photographs, his mother smiles only slightly. The man who photographed

my grandmother splashing in the Adriatic, her longtime companion and a Sephardic Jew, has been killed in Jasenovac concentration camp.

Starting at age 8, I used to pore over the pictures, asking my father a battery of questions. "Who's that?" I would ask,

pointing at a pretty, smiling woman with a fur hand muff. "That's your Great-Aunt Katja," he would say. Or, looking at a

picture of their summer holidays, "Was that your donkey?" He would laugh. "No," he would say. "They were giving children

rides at the seaside."

I understood the metamorphic nature of the war from an early age, even if its nuances were beyond my grasp. The equation,

though my father never overtly explained it like this, was simple enough: prewar = happiness; war = misery. When telling

stories about his childhood, my father vastly preferred to paint the landscape of the former. On the rare occasions that he

spoke about the war, he did so in a controlled staccato. Only very rarely would he elaborate, revealing his family's methods

of survival. My favorite story details my grandmother's clairvoyance or, perhaps more exactly, superstition. One morning

before a round of air raids in 1941, before the Germans entered Sarajevo, a glass suddenly cracked on the sideboard while my grandmother fed her sons breakfast. When she examined the still-intact glass, she interpreted the jagged fault line as an omen. She bundled them out of the apartment, and a few minutes later a bomb fell in the yard, severely damaging their building.

"That is why one should always listen to a gut feeling," my father would counsel, after telling this story. "We could have been killed." But I always wanted more. There is no surer way to spark a child's interest in something than by avoiding it in conversation. As I grew up, learning about those years became my obsession, despite my father's reluctance to fill in the story. "Your father will tell you when he's ready," my mother said once, when I tried to extract the information from her instead. It was my mother who grounded him through the years of my childhood, reviving him from depressions, which struck randomly and which
frequently manifested themselves as rage. When she married him, it is fair to say, she married his history as well. But she respected his right to privacy about it.

There is only one story from the war years that I knew as a very small child, and it is one I overheard him tell other adults at a dinner. I had been playing underneath the table, and I don't think he knew I was in the room. On a foggy winter morning when he was no more than 12 or 13, he was walking down a tree-lined promenade in Sarajevo when a boot suddenly loomed out of the mist, at eye level. He looked upward to see that the boot belonged to a man who had been hanged from a tree. When he looked around in panic, for the first time paying attention to his surroundings, he realized that other men and women were hanging from the trees. Although I knew that the story had not been intended for my ears, I pestered him for the details in the days to come. Who were the people? I wanted to know. And what had they done? It is doubtful that I would have understood the idea of wartime reprisals against civilians, but I had an acute sense of my father's uneasiness when he brushed the questions away.

LIKE MANY OTHER ADULTS WHO SURVIVED LEAN WAR CHILDHOODS, my father cannot bear to throw anything away. On a visit home several years ago, I caught him going through the wastepaper basket in my room. He was extracting a pair of headphones I'd accidentally put through the wash. They were waterlogged and completely ruined.

"What on Earth do you think can be done with those?" I asked him in annoyance. "Besides, they were only a few dollars!" He shook his head, grumbling about a generation that knew only waste. Modern American life was soft, he would tell us, and if  we were forced to make do with nothing, even for a little while, we would understand his logic.

The headphones joined the magazines, junk mail and old clothes intended for Goodwill but intercepted at the last moment.

Together with broken-off pieces of old typewriters, metal fans, cables and eyeglasses that, to my eyes, looked hopelessly

beyond repair, they filled boxes in the basement, attic and garage. My mother, a firm believer in organization, would insist

on a "spring cleaning" every few years but with little success. She had picked a husband with no love of minimalism or having

yard sales.

And, although our parents never subscribed to the "force-feeding" school of child rearing, wasting food was considered

shameful in our household. Our father would tell us at the dinner table, "Take only what you know you can eat." It was an

utterly reasonable request, and when I did not comply, ambitiously helping myself to something I couldn't eat, he would look

at my plate unhappily. He would look at my plate unhappily and then proceed to finish my food, whether he was hungry or not.

Once, he found a piece of bread I had spread thickly with peanut butter but then thrown away, half-eaten. He dug it out of

the garbage can and waved it at me.

"I know, I know," I told him with the jadedness only a 13-year-old can muster, and then parroted his favorite, enigmatic

admonition. "I should 'respect the bread.'"

He froze as if I had slapped him. "Try going hungry!" he shouted at me, brandishing the piece of bread as if he had every

intention of feeding it to me, and I ran from the room in tears. Several hours later, he told me in an oddly strangled voice,

"You'll never go hungry for as long as I'm alive."

My father is a powerfully built man, but his legs are as delicate as a bird's, and he has knock-knees. We used to tease him

when he bravely revealed them to the world in bathing trunks. Today, I know that his deformities were caused by rickets -- in

the war there had been no milk, or fruits or vegetables, either. Once, he had ended up in Dubrovnik without ration cards for

several weeks while his family helped to smuggle others from Sarajevo. His family had survived on bread the children begged

from the Italian soldiers and mussels the size of thumbnails that they scraped from the city's piers.

On a vacation to the Adriatic Coast several years ago, my father and I waded through the shallows, and I pointed out the

tiny, conical mussels, which clung to the rocks.

"Those are the ones," my father told me. "Can you imagine how much work goes into gathering even a handful?"

The author in her father's lap at Ocean City in 1973.

I remember trying to pry one away with my fingernail. A friend's mother had told me that they can be prepared in a tasty

sauce of wine, garlic and parsley. I mentioned this to my father, who shook his head with a grimace.

"Never again," he told me. "I couldn't eat them ever again."

MY FATHER WANTED, AT ALL COSTS, TO PREVENT US FROM BEING SAD, and he tried to intercept any situation that would grieve us,

no matter how mundane. When the Washington Redskins were not winning championships in the late 1970s, he switched allegiances

without batting an eye, steering my then-very young brother toward rooting for the Dallas Cowboys, who were building their

own football dynasty in those years. In his enthusiasm for backing a winning team, he didn't even consider the ramifications

of sending his son to a D.C.-area school in a Cowboys sweat shirt.

When I had a nightmare at a slumber party (which I'd been allowed to attend only after a lot of pleading), I roused my friend

in the middle of the night. She tried to persuade me to go back to sleep, but I only thought wistfully of home. I knew that

my father would pick me up, and I tiptoed into the kitchen, where I dialed our number.

My father's voice on the other end was groggy, but it also had a worried edge to it. He hated when my brother and I spent the

night at friends' houses, citing such hazards as faulty smoke alarms. "It's ridiculous," he would finally say in his last-

ditch attempt at protest, "to sleep on a stranger's floor in a sleeping bag when you have a perfectly comfortable bed at

home."

When I whimpered into the phone that night that I wanted to come home, his only response was to tell me he'd be there in 15

minutes. He didn't even scold me in the car.

My brother did not pay much attention to the ribbing he received in school for his Cowboys paraphernalia, and I limited my

slumber party requests to one or two friends whose families my parents knew well. But there was one issue over which my

brother and I were locked in continuous battle against our father: our desire for a dog. It was the one thing we most wanted,

and it figured prominently in our "Dear Santa" letters year after year. By the time we wore him down, we were both teenagers.

"No dog," he would shout for years to put an end to our whining. "Not in this house!"

His reasoning was curiously specific: "Dogs die, and that would make you very sad."

"People die, too," I pointed out once.

"Yes," he said reasonably. "But dogs die seven times as fast."

Later, my mother told me the truth, "Your Dad had a dog once."

And so, at 10, I learned one more detail about the war: My father had found the bloody body of his dog, a German shepherd

named Lux, after an air raid.

The clues were scattered through my childhood like bread crumbs.

IN 1988, WHEN I WAS STILL IN HIGH SCHOOL, my father covered the anniversary of Kristallnacht at a Maryland synagogue for the

Voice of America. The ceremony included a performance by Flory Jagoda, a Washington-based Ladino singer from Sarajevo. Many

of her songs recalled the city my father had also known in his childhood, and, while he could not understand the Ladino words

(Ladino is a Sephardic Jewish form of Spanish), he followed along with the translations in the program and sat through a

recitation of the kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead. He understood even less of the Hebrew prayer than he did the

Ladino songs, but something shifted inside him as he listened to it.

When my father returned home that night, it was clear to all of us that something had changed. In the days that followed he

told us about the German occupation of Sarajevo and the Independent State of Croatia, about the abrupt end of prewar

happiness. The telling of this history is a process that has lasted years.

Josef Finci, my grandmother's companion, had evaded 1941 deportations of the city's Jewish population by hiding out in the

apartment where my father lived with his mother and brother. Months went by before someone informed on Josef, most likely the

man hired to forge documents for his escape. On a day when my father was playing soccer on the street with other neighborhood

boys, a Black Maria patrol car pulled up in front of his building on Brankova Street. "And that," my father told us, "was

that."

This was, of course, only the barest of outlines. Each year my father has filled in the details a little more. When the Black

Maria pulled up, "that" was obviously "not that." My father turned around to see the hulking vehicle, and he knew that it

likely meant Josef's discovery. He also knew that the penalty for hiding a Jew meant death. In the months before the police

raid, he and my Uncle Frank had mapped out an entire escape route for Josef, complete with a rope with which to swing to the

neighbor's balcony a floor below. My father and Frank loved films with swashbucklers who always made daring escapes, and the

plan was the stuff of young boys' dreams -- a cross between Tarzan and an escaping Pimpernel. On the day of his arrest,

however, when the police began beating on the door, Josef froze. After months of near-incarceration in the apartment, it is

doubtful that he would have been strong enough to lower himself down the rope. Or, perhaps, he simply knew there was no hope

of escape. When the police entered the apartment, my uncle, then only 10, was trying frantically to push Josef toward the

balcony.

Josef was sent to Jasenovac, and my grandmother, a Catholic woman accused of harboring a Jew, spent several long weeks in

Beledija prison, narrowly escaping execution and clinging to the story that she and Josef had concocted in case of discovery:

My grandmother had entered into a tenant-landlord agreement in which Josef had rented a room from her, not revealing that he

was Jewish. Evidently, Josef clung to the story just as fiercely as my grandmother did, though it could save only her and her

children at that point. He was killed in Jasenovac, machine-gunned against a barbed-wire fence in a camp uprising at the very

end of the war. My family learned this detail from his surviving sister, Nela Pinto, years later. My grandmother never knew

it. At the end of the war, as survivors trickled back into Sarajevo, Josef simply failed to materialize. According to my

father, that is how she eventually knew he was dead.

In 1963, after a lifetime of hardship, my grandmother attempted to hang herself. My father found her before she succeeded

completely, but the incident left her an invalid, and she died five years later as a result of that botched attempt.

WITH THE FIRE BLAZING IN OUR HOUSE, my father and Andrew did manage to douse most of the flames. "There's nothing we can do

now until the fire department gets here," my brother finally told him, but still Dad would not be moved. When my brother

picked him up and half-carried, half-dragged him from the house, he pulled our father's elbow slightly out of joint. I was

watching from the house's front steps, and I registered the sudden expression on my father's face: a combination of shock,

annoyance and pain. It was as if our sleepwalking father had finally regained consciousness.

By the time the Arlington County fire engines roared up, we were all shivering on the street in pajamas and bare feet. We

made lists in our heads: the things that were expendable vs. the things that we could not bear to lose.

"The photographs," my mother said. "Just the photographs."

The firefighters knocked through the walls to make sure the flames were not hiding and preparing to re-ignite. They wrapped

us in blankets and gave us their gloves to keep warm. They were gentle with us, and respectful toward my father, who even

managed to joke with them, offering soot-covered Christmas cookies, baked that afternoon and left cooling on racks on the

kitchen counter.

The house was, for the present, uninhabitable, and although my father insisted that we could manage, the firefighters were

equally adamant that we spend at least that night somewhere else. "The fumes are toxic," they pointed out. "Tomorrow, you can

come back and start cleaning up."

My father and I filled out reports with the fire marshal. I don't remember what I wrote, but I do know that my hand was

shaking as I signed it. I could not erase the sight of my father dumbly refusing to leave the house, or of my frantic

brother's 6-foot-4 frame nearly obliterated by smoke. I was less frightened than I was angry, and as we drove away from the

house, I exploded. "Who cares about the house if you'd died?" I shouted at my father's profile, which seemed to have aged

rapidly in the space of a few hours. "A house can be replaced. It's a thing."

He looked at me unrepentantly, as he has more or less continued to do in the year since then whenever the subject arises. "

Don't be melodramatic," he told me. "I've been through worse."

Courtney Angela Brkic, the author of The Stone Fields: An Epitaph for the Living, teaches at Kenyon College in Ohio.

Come help Steelton celebrate Mardi Gras

on Saturday, February 5th, 2005, at 7:30pm

at Prince of Peace Parish School Hall
(former St. Ann’s)

with a performance by Kolo Ensemble "Marian" of Steelton and a guest Croatian folklore ensemble from the New York Metropolitan Area." A dance will follow with live music provided by 'Zadnja Stanica' of Steelton. Donation $5. Contact Manda Krpan atlipac14@homail.com  or 717.343.4207 for tickets or information.
Nearby accommodations available at:
Baymont Inn
Telephone: 717-939-8000
Fax: 717-939-0500
Best Western
Telephone: 717-939-1600
Fax: 717-939-8763

Fasnicka Zabava u Steeltonu
Steelton vas poziva na Fasnicku zabavu koja ce se odrzati u subotu, 5. veljace, 2005 u 7:30 navecer u Prince of Peace Parish
School Hall (bivsa St. Ann’s). Nastupaju kolo grupa "Marian" iz Steeltona i gostujuce kolo grupe iz New Yorka i okolice. Nakon nastupa slijedi ziva glazba 'Zadnje Stanice' iz Steeltona. Ulaznice su $5. Za sve informacije i karte, obratite se Mandi Krpan na lipac14@homail.com  ili 717.343.4207.
Smjestaj:
Baymont Inn
Telephone: 717-939-8000
Fax: 717-939-0500
Best Western
Telephone: 717-939-1600
Fax: 717-939-8763

 

Janica Kostelic takes overall World Cup lead


 

Janica Kostelic took over the World Cup overall standings
The Croatian missed last season due to hyper-thyroidism
Agence France Presse

Kostelic 739

Goetschl 718
Poutiainen 706

1/15/2005, 9:36 a.m. ET
By ANDREW DAMPF
The Associated Press

CORTINA D'AMPEZZO, Italy (AP) — Austria's Renate Goetschl showed again Saturday she is the queen of Cortina, winning a downhill for her third victory in four days. And Croatia's Janica Kostelic showed she is back at the summit of World Cup skiing after missing all of last season.

Goetschl posted a winning time of 1 minute, 37.27 seconds — 0.29 ahead of Kostelic. Lindsey Kildow of the United States finished third, 0.44 behind, for her sixth top-three finish this season.

This was Goetschl's eighth victory on the Olympia delle Tofane course. It was also her 36th World Cup victory, tying her with Germany's Katja Seizinger for third place on the career list.

"It was a goal of mine to reach Katja. I'm happy that it's now, I didn't expect it so soon," said Goetschl, who had not won this season before arriving in this resort town, which is known as the queen of the Dolomite mountain range.

Kostelic finished second for her best career downhill result and took the lead in the overall World Cup standings.

"It's pretty good, but there are still a lot of races to come," said Kostelic, who celebrated wildly after her finish. "I'm not really into that right now. I'm really not thinking about it. I'm just going race to race."

A former two-time overall champion who missed last season because of illness and injuries, Kostelic now leads with 739 points. Goetschl moved into second with 718 and Finland's Tanja Poutiainen, who began the day with the lead, dropped to third with 706. Poutiainen does not compete in speed events and is taking the week off.

Defending overall winner Anja Paerson of Sweden finished 29th and dropped from second to fourth with 661 points.

With five super giant slalom wins and three downhill victories on this course, Goetschl matched Ingemar Stenmark for most wins at one resort. The Swedish great won eight slaloms and giant slaloms at Madonna Di Campiglio between 1974 and 1983.

"I'm just really happy about this now," Goetschl said. "It's not every day you get three victories day after day," she said.

Kildow lost her lead in the downhill standings to Goetschl after the race. She also trails the Austrian in the super-G standings. Kildow finished second to Goetschl in Friday's super-G. Goetschl also won a super-G on Wednesday, her first win of the season.

Racing in her shiny gold helmet and the red boots of the Austrian "Wunderteam," Goetschl was the first top skier to hit the course. She finished 1.02 seconds ahead of previous leader Kirsten Clark of the United States, who ended up eighth. In other American finishes, Caroline Lalive was 12th and Julia Mancuso 17th.

Despite perfect conditions that held up throughout the morning, no skier could catch Goetschl.

"On some other slope maybe," Kostelic said. "Being behind her here is like winning because she's too fast for everyone."

http://pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/sports-6/110579904946840.xml&storylist=pahomepage

photo:janica50
Janica Kostelic took over the World Cup overall standings
The Croatian missed last season due to hyper-thyroidism
Agence France Presse

Goetschl wins first of two downhills at Cortina; Kildow third
By Hank McKee
January 15, 2005

The track at Cortina d'Ampezzo, Olympia delle Tofane, has some interesting nuances. Tap into them and you own the place. Regine Cavagnoud won four races there. Isolde Kostner won five. Katja Seizinger won four. But Renate Goetschl has changed the locks and parked her car in the garage with eight Cortina World Cup wins, the most by nearly double of any competitor.

Saturday, Jan. 15, with a day left yet to run, she had collected three wins at Cortina this season in four days. None of the margins were big, but they were big enough. "On some other slope, maybe" said runner-up Croatian star Janica Kostelic. "But, being behind her here is like winning... She's too fast for everyone."

With the most recent win Goetschl caught Katja Seizinger for third on the all time women's World Cup wins list with 36. It was something she had aimed at doing, "but I didn't expect it this soon." At 29, she could elect to go after the top two on the list, Vreni Schneider with 55 and Annemarie Moser-Proell with 62, but those marks will be well off into the future.

The second place result was nearly as exciting for Kostelic as first was for Goetschl. The Croate moved into the lead for the World Cup overall title with her first ever downhill podium. Both she and Goetschl overtook Finn Tanja Poutiainen who has led the tour from the early going with nothing but slalom and GS points. Poutiainen does not race downhill. "It's pretty good," said an elated Kostelic, "but there are still a lot of races to come." Thirteen in fact, assuming the schedule is completed in this weather dependent sport, (3DH, 3GS, 3SG, 3SL and 1 combined).

The happy news on the U.S. front was the sixth podium of the season for Lindsey Kildow who finished third. The 20 year old was set back in the downhill standings to second by Goetschl, but she is obviously still in the fight and still throwing punches. She skied brilliantly high on the course and may be having a set of Olympia delle Tofane keys made. In five races over two seasons she has never finished worse than fifth.

Kirsten Clark finished eighth, her best result of the season, but she had the unenviable delight of holding the lead before Goetschl came down and pushed her to second place by more than a second. The U.S. got it's usual five scoring finishers with Caroline Lalive in 12th, Julia Mancuso in 17th and Jonna Mendes in 23rd. Bryna McCarty was 38 missing points by .64. Libby Ludlow finished 42nd.

The Canadians suffered two DNF's and had Kelly Vanderbeek in 26th place. The only other Canadian racer to cross the finish line was Sophie Splawinski in 44th. This result didn’t come without any hardships: Approximately a kilometer into the race, Splawinski, the last racer out of the start gate, was yellow flagged after the skier ahead of her fell. Splawinski had to take the chairlift back to the summit of the course, and then hike up to the start hut positioned between two impressive rocks at the highest point on the mountain. Splawinski courageously regrouped herself and managed to ski a solid run considering her young experience on the World Cup circuit.

“I’m very happy about my run,â€? said Splawinski. “I stayed calm and I even found a way to use my re-run to my advantage. I talked to my coach and he gave me a few pointers on what I could do better in that first section. I guess every time you get another chance on this hill it’s a bonus!â€?

Also noteworthy was the return of former World Cup downhill title holder (2000) German Regine Haeusl. It was her first scoring race (27th place) in nearly a year as she attempts to rebound, at age 31, from torn left knee ligaments sustained a year ago. She had been a DNF in both Cortina SG's and had finished in the 30's and 40's in earlier races this season.


World Cup

Women's Downhill
Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy
Jan. 15, 2004
1. Renate Goetschl, AUT 1:37.27
2. Janica Kostelic, CRO 1:37.56
3. Lindsey Kildow, USA 1:37.71
4. Hilde Gerg, GER 1:37.80
5. Michaela Dorfmeister, AUT 1:37.95
6. Ingrid Jacquemod, FRA 1:37.98
7. Nadia Styger, SUI 1:38.20
8. Kirsten Clark, USA 1:38/29
9. Janette Hargin, SWE 1:38.33
10. Alexandra Meissnitzer, AUT 1:38.48
11. Karin Blaser, AUT 1:38.53
12. Caroline Lalive, USA 1:38.55
12. Jessica Lindell-Vikarby, SWE 1:38.55
14. Sylvaine Berthod, SUI 1:38.69
15. Isolde Kostner, ITA 1:38.75
16. Fraenzi Aufdenblatten, SUI 1:38.80
17. Julia Mancuso, USA 1:38.83
18. Astrid Vierthaler, AUT 1:38.96
19. Carole Montillet-Carles, FRA 1:39.03
20. Andrea Fischbacher, AUT 1:39.09
21. Petra Haltmayr, GER 1:39.12
22. Marie Marchand-Arvier, FRA 1:39.22
23. Jonna Mendes, USA 1:39.23
24. Magda Mattel, FRA 1:39.28
24. Isabelle Huber, GER 1:39.28
26. Kelly Vanderbeek, CAN 1:39.37
27. Katja Wirth, AUT 1:39.41
27. Regine Haeusl, GER 1:39.41
29. Anja Paerson, SWE 1:39.42
30. Selina Heregger, AUT 1:39.52
other North Americans:
38. Bryna McCarty, USA 1:40.16
42. Libby Ludlow, USA 1:40.70
44. Sophie Splawinski, CAN 1:40.99
DNF: Emily Brydon, Anne-Marie LeFrancois, CAN

THE SCOOP

By Hank McKee

equipment
Women's Downhill, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Jan. 15, 2005 Skier, skis/boots/bindings
1 Goetschl, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
2 Kostelic, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
3 Kildow, Rossignol/Rossignol/Rossignol
4 Gerg, Volkl/Lange/Marker
5 Dorfmeister, Atomic/Atomic/Atomic
6 Jacquemod, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
7 Styger, Salomon/Salomon/Salomon
8 Clark, Fischer/Salomon/Marker
9 Hargin, Rossignol/Lange/Rossignol
10 Meissnitzer, Volkl/Tecnica/Marker

Women's Downhill, Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy Jan. 15, 2005. ... It is the 20th race of the women's 32 race (plus 1 combined) schedule. ... The fifth of eight scheduled downhills. ... Winning margin is .29 and the top seven are in the same second.

It is the 36th career victory for Renate Goetschl. ... third of the season and third in four days. ... It is her eighth win at Cortina. ... It is her 18th DH win. She is now tied with Katja Seizinger for third on all time women's victory list (behind Annemarie Moser-Proell and Vreni Schneider); and is second all time on the DH win list behind Moser-Proell.

It is the 34th career podium for Janica Kostelic. ... Her fifth of the season. ... It is her first career podium in DH.

It is the seventh career podium for Lindsey Kildow. ... Her sixth of the season. ... Her second in two days.

It is the best finish of the season for Kirsten Clark. ... It is her 29th career top 10. ... her fifth at Cortina. ... It is the sixth best of 10 scoring results this season for Caroline Lalive. ... She has been in the top 12 of all five DH's this season. ... It is the 12th scoring result of the season for Julia Mancuso. ...Her fourth in DH. ... It is the seventh scoring result of the season for Jonna Mendes. ... It is the fifth scoring result of the season for Kelly Vanderbeek.

It is the first scoring race in nearly a year (1/18/04) for 31 year old Regina Haeusl. ... she is returning from torn left knee ligaments 1/28/04. ... She had been a DNF in both Cortina SG's and had finished in the 30's and 40's in earlier races this season.

Both Janica Kostelic and Renate Goetschl moved past Tanja Poutiainen (did not race) and Anja Paerson (29th) in the overall standings... Kostelic holds the lead 739-718 over Goetschl. ... Poutiainen is third at 706 and Paerson fourth at 661. Top American is Lindsey Kildow in fifth at 625. ... Goetschl has the downhill standings lead 355-335 over Kildow with Hilde Gerg (finished 4th) third at 315. ... Caroline Lalive is next best American in eighth at 138. Austria leads the women's Nations Cup standings 3556-2074. ... The Germans are third at 1578.


http://www.skiracing.com/news/news_display.php/2126/ALPINE

Join Croatian "Jules Verne Club"

http://www.ice.hr/davors/ejvclub.htm
 

"Jules Verne Club" was initiated at October, 1997, and formally established at 9-th February 1998. in Pazin, Istria, Croatia, with purpose to put together people who like works of famous French author Jules Verne (1828-1905), to popularize reading, translating and publishing of his works, and to encourage studying and researching of his extraordinary opus and life. Direct motivation for establishing "Jules Verne Club" in Pazin is a fact that in his novel "Mathias Sandorf" (1885) Verne wrote about Pazin, his thousand years old castle, and underground cave.

One of towers of a Castle in Pazin, place where Jules Verne's Mathias Sandorf was prisoned
 

"Jules Verne Club" will announce actions and results here at this site, and through "paper" bulletin which will be free delivered to the members.

Jules Verne wrote about Pazin in his novel "Mathias Sandorf" (1885), and that was a result, besides other, of his correspondence with contemporary mayor of Pazin, Giusepe Cech, and reading works of French writer and traveler Charles Yriarte. In memory of this Jules Verne's novel, Pazin had ( in 1989-1990) an amateur theatre group named "Mathias Sandorf". Today, Pazin has a Jules Verne street (since 1992.), just in a part of town nearby a thousand years old castle, that one which Verne described like Mathias Sandorf's prison. At 9-th February 1998. there was a "Jules Verne Club" established in Pazin, with purpose, besides others, to make more famous a connections between Pazin (and that means Istria and Croatia too), with this extraordinary French writer. Intention is to give deserved cultural and historical meaning to this connection, and to use it as an inspiration for some activities in our time.
We are just at very start of our efforts; so please, take this page as one which is still "under construction", and, for now, have a brief at one little "julesvernian" photo-album of our town.

http://www.ice.hr/davors/ejvclub.htm
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Contact-adress:
"Jules Verne Club"
Stari Trg 8
52000 PAZIN
CROATIA
phone/fax: ++385-52/622-460
e-mail: davor.sisovic@pu.tel.hr 

HOW TO JOIN "JULES VERNE CLUB"?

One of basic principals of membership in "Jules Verne Club" is that there's no any financial obligation for members. The only condition for become a member of "Jules Verne Club" is to donate a book or other cultural goods for Club's collection. It could be any Jules Verne's book; a book on Jules Verne; a material about Jules Verne's sources, specially for "Mathias Sandorf"; a film or a comic-book based on Jules Verne's works; a poster for Verne based films or plays; or any other cultural good connected with Jules Verne or Pazin.

There are two basic categories of membership in "Jules Verne Club": regular members, and correspondent members. Both have the same obligation to donate one book or other cultural goods for Club's collection.
Regular members are usually from Pazin and neighbor area, and we expect from them to attend Club's weekly meetings, and to take place in organization of Club's actions and events. Correspondent members have no obligation to take place in current Club's activities.

Regular and correspondent members have equal rights to be informed about every Club's activities, to be called for any public events organized by Club, and to receive Club's Bulletin for free.

For any additional information, please contact us by e-mail or otherwise (see end of this page). After expressing a wish to become a member of "Jules Verne Club", and sending to us basic information about a candidate (name, address, e-mail and URL, special interests, etc.), we'll ask for choosing a category of membership (suppose that mostly it will be a "correspondent member" category), and we'll please for offer for donation. After receiving of a donation, we'll send a member card to a new member, and we'll begin to send him all Club's materials, including Club's Bulletin.

Of course, after becoming a member, a correspondent one also has some obligations: to popularize Jules Verne and his works, specially novel "Mathias Sandorf" and connection between Jules Verne and Pazin, as much as he can.

Croatia adds Brussels Split route
 

Posted on Monday, January 10, 2005 @ 2:20 PM CET by webmaster

b737229 writes "Croatia Airlines will take delivery of an additional Airbus A320 in May 2005. The aircraft is ex-Skyservice (C-GJUQ). The airline will begin nonstop service from Split to Brussels on April 2nd. The weekly Saturday Airbus A319 flight will operate in codeshare with SN Brussels Airlines."

http://www.luchtzak.be/article7222.html
 

VOTE

Croatia Elects new president on Jan 16, 2005
 

Presidential candidate Jadranka Kosor, left, and Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader greet their supporters at a pre-election rally in Zagreb, Croatia, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005. Kosor will challenge Croatian President Stipe Mesic, who is running for his second term in office in the second round of elections on Sunday. (AP Photo/Filip Horvat)

Presidential candidate Jadranka Kosor gestures during her speech at a pre-election rally in Zagreb, Croatia, Thursday, Jan. 13, 2005. Kosor will challenge Croatian President Stipe Mesic, who is running for his second term in office in the second round of elections on Sunday. (AP Photo/Filip Horvat)

Croatian President Stipe Mesic hands out roses as he campaigns at the market in Zagreb, Croatia on Saturday, Jan. 8, 2005. Mesic, who is running for his second term in office, will face Jadranka Kosor of the ruling Croatian Democratic Union in the second round of presidential election on Jan. 16. (AP Photo/Filip Horvat)