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00:00:00A nine-year-old girl from a relatively peaceful Bukovar goes to the sea.
00:00:05A war breaks out, and summer becomes a life in exile.
00:00:09That's how a life story begins,
00:00:11translated into a semi-autobiographical novel by Ivana Simić-Bodrožić,
00:00:15which is actually a diary about growing up in the war, written 19 years later.
00:00:20When I realized how complicated and abnormal it was,
00:00:24while you're a child, you can't live in the past or in the future,
00:00:28but you live in the present moment,
00:00:31and you don't think the way adults do.
00:00:35A graduate of philosophy and Croatian literature,
00:00:38a well-known first step in that direction,
00:00:41in her first novel, Hotel Zagorje,
00:00:44she talks about her seven-year stay in Jadran, Kumrovac and Zagreb.
00:00:49She wrote an exact, honest story about all of us,
00:00:54of course, from her own experience, from a life that deserved that story.
00:01:00The story of constant fighting with her brother and mother,
00:01:03and waiting for news about her father, who was captured in Bukovar and later killed by the Ovčars,
00:01:08says that domestic people have no understanding for refugees.
00:01:12You are expelled from your city and forced to be somewhere where people live their lives,
00:01:17and in a way you hate those people who live their lives,
00:01:20because you can't live your own life,
00:01:22and you feel like they have no feelings for everything that happens to you.
00:01:27Kumrovac tells a story about the ghetto.
00:01:29Bukovars from the former party school spend their time following the news,
00:01:33drinking from the Ovčars, writing letters to politicians and begging them to help them.
00:01:38She also sent letters to Ivan and his brother.
00:01:41She also talks about how Bukovars sometimes treat Zagorje differently.
00:01:46I call Zagorje Pajceki in Romanian, and some of them are very angry with me today.
00:01:51Her upbringing is divided into refugees, refugees and those in their homes.
00:01:57We were refugees, but then there were some refugees from Bosnia.
00:02:01I mean, we were poor, but these Bosnians were really poor.
00:02:04So, among all of us, I think it's somehow human and natural,
00:02:08there is this will and desire for domination over other people, tribes, communities.
00:02:15As an illustrator and winner in the literary competition,
00:02:18Ivana describes the elite seventh high school in Zagreb.
00:02:22The first impressions are that it's a beautiful city, but also completely insensitive.
00:02:26It wasn't easy for me in high school.
00:02:28At one point, I had serious problems with grades and with the students,
00:02:32because somehow, I think it all came together,
00:02:37everything that happened to me in my life, with that rebellion, with discovering myself.
00:02:42She describes Zagreb in the scenes from the tram or bakery.
00:02:46There were no bacon rolls, I mean, there were, but they were called long rolls,
00:02:50and then we found a lot of misunderstanding in Zagreb bakeries
00:02:54when we were looking for long rolls, because they were bacon, right?
00:02:58Ivana lives today in the village of Dugoje, on the outskirts of the city.
00:03:01She studies literature and writing, and her mother has two children.
00:03:05Her husband Roman has the same profession, he is the manager of an apartment building.
00:03:10He has become their friend.
00:03:13I gave my mother and my friend to Ivana in full confidence,
00:03:19in front of my mother and the priest.
00:03:22Even though she is ten years younger than us,
00:03:25she is a girl for whom it was immediately clear to me
00:03:28that I can give her to him without any problems,
00:03:31that he will make a decent man out of her.
00:03:34With an intimate story, Ivana described the Croatian society in a cruel time.
00:03:38Her trauma is the key to her inspiration.
00:03:41She herself said in an interview that what she wrote in a book
00:03:45cannot be returned to her father.
00:03:47Of course, it is clear that this kind of trauma and loss is completely unbearable,
00:03:51but writing is the way by which you can grow up
00:03:56with such events, with such traumas.
00:04:00She wrote it in very rare pockets of free time
00:04:04that she would find between the fields and the garden.
00:04:07Even after some tests, she managed to put a lot of it into one paragraph.
00:04:11I think that during that period she could see
00:04:15how persistent and brave she was,
00:04:18and how much she wanted to show the fate
00:04:22that she inherited from her mother.
00:04:25She became a great writer with her first novel,
00:04:28and her fate is actually a symbol of Croatia in the 1990s
00:04:31and all that this country is.
00:04:42Good day, dear viewers. You are watching the show Sunday at two.
00:04:45Our guest is the writer Ivana Simić-Bodružić.
00:04:48Ivana, good day, welcome.
00:04:50Good day, and thank you for inviting me to the show.
00:04:53You were in Vukovar yesterday.
00:04:55I was.
00:04:56You don't go very often.
00:04:58Well, I don't go very often,
00:05:00maybe once every two years, once a year.
00:05:03What do you do when you go there?
00:05:06Well, actually, I went to the city for the first time yesterday.
00:05:09Otherwise, since I don't have any family there anymore,
00:05:12or any kind of property,
00:05:14I go to the cemetery during the holidays,
00:05:17possibly to Ovčar,
00:05:19and I felt the need to go to the city by myself,
00:05:23sit next to us, have a cup of coffee,
00:05:26and somehow soak up the atmosphere of the city
00:05:29and find those places that remind me of a part of my life,
00:05:34and somehow just be in the city by myself.
00:05:39What day was Vukovar yesterday?
00:05:41Windy, but it was nice.
00:05:45When you sit in the hotel Danube,
00:05:48where your dad was the boss of the hall,
00:05:52you remember, I suppose.
00:05:56Well, I don't know, it's hard for me to explain that feeling.
00:05:59Vukovar today and Vukovar in the past,
00:06:02that city has changed a lot,
00:06:04maybe not in a physical sense,
00:06:06although whoever comes to see that the center is still quite unrenovated,
00:06:09and there are still too many traces of war in that city,
00:06:13but a good part of Vukovar has not returned,
00:06:16some other people live there today,
00:06:18the atmosphere is different,
00:06:19and all those people who came back, came back completely changed.
00:06:22So that city, in some segments,
00:06:25looks like the place where I was born and spent part of my childhood,
00:06:29but on the other hand, there is some energy in the city
00:06:33around which we agree,
00:06:34and me and some of my friends who came back,
00:06:37you simply feel something heavy in the air,
00:06:40and I think it's related primarily to all those people
00:06:43who were lying on the streets, dead 20 years ago,
00:06:46and that energy somehow simply stayed there,
00:06:50because there was too much of it,
00:06:52and maybe it will take a lot of generations,
00:06:54and a lot of time for all those people to change,
00:06:57and to somehow start living there,
00:06:59people who do not remember those scenes,
00:07:01and then maybe it will be a little different,
00:07:03but for now,
00:07:04I always have that feeling that I am very excited when I go to Vukovar,
00:07:07but then when I get there,
00:07:09after we visit the graves and all the other places we go to,
00:07:14I actually wait to return to Zagreb.
00:07:18What do you think about the people there,
00:07:20what can you see there one day?
00:07:22Well, I don't know,
00:07:23quite a long time ago, when I first left,
00:07:26I hoped I wouldn't recognize anyone,
00:07:29because somehow I was a little afraid of those friends,
00:07:33and colleagues, and neighbors,
00:07:35and somehow I wasn't sure I knew what to say to them when I met them,
00:07:40but today so many new people have settled there,
00:07:43that all this has been lost and mixed up,
00:07:46and I have several friends in Vukovar,
00:07:48and that is what actually connects me the most,
00:07:51and some of my memories from before.
00:07:54You say that Vukovar is your favorite city in the world,
00:07:57but you wouldn't be able to live there?
00:07:59Well, not exactly because it's not the same place anymore,
00:08:02there are some places,
00:08:04and some moments that remind me of the most beautiful times,
00:08:07and one of the most beautiful times in my life,
00:08:09however, I don't know what I would do there.
00:08:12What do you remember from Vukovar as a child?
00:08:14You left Vukovar, how old were you?
00:08:16I was nine years old.
00:08:18What do you remember? What are the pictures that you remember the most?
00:08:21Well, I remember what I remember from my childhood,
00:08:24going out with my parents, with my friends,
00:08:28playing outside in the street in the summer,
00:08:31from dawn to dusk,
00:08:33with a piece of bread and butter in my hand,
00:08:35and I remember, I don't know, grandma,
00:08:37and that everything was somehow right,
00:08:40and maybe everyone has that feeling from childhood,
00:08:43but after all this happened,
00:08:46after that childhood that happened,
00:08:49then probably, maybe I idealize that feeling somewhere,
00:08:52and I raise it above everything that came later,
00:08:55but I can say that I spent in that city,
00:08:57really, one of the most beautiful times in my life until the war.
00:09:00Well, everyone idealizes childhood,
00:09:02I mean, it's a universal feeling among people.
00:09:05When children, especially in your case,
00:09:08it's interesting, in a way,
00:09:10you write about it in your book,
00:09:12when children, and when you,
00:09:14experience in that environment
00:09:16that people share,
00:09:18not only on those who are nice to you,
00:09:20and those who are not,
00:09:22but that they share on some other determinants,
00:09:26you write about it,
00:09:28through stories, jokes,
00:09:30you can tell me,
00:09:32when did you, as a child, feel that,
00:09:34I don't know, your friend,
00:09:36was actually something else, or that...
00:09:38Well, I personally believe that in the 90s,
00:09:41because I was really young then,
00:09:43and that such an atmosphere reigned in Vukovar,
00:09:46I wasn't quite sure what I was,
00:09:48I mean, mine is in Croatia,
00:09:50but that wasn't something that was important,
00:09:53my parents had Serbian friends,
00:09:55we all hung out together,
00:09:57that wasn't something that was being discussed at all,
00:10:00however, in the beginning of the 90s,
00:10:02some stories started,
00:10:04I don't know who was first,
00:10:06but that, in school, who lies,
00:10:08who says that Serbia is small,
00:10:10and then, I don't know,
00:10:12it started somehow,
00:10:14but it was all some kind of chaos,
00:10:16it was all something,
00:10:18no one thought that something so terrible
00:10:20would really happen,
00:10:22what I remember,
00:10:24that summer,
00:10:26at some point,
00:10:28the kids from the city started leaving,
00:10:30everyone on their side,
00:10:32at one point there were no Serbian kids,
00:10:34so it would be good for you to go to the sea,
00:10:36however, for me,
00:10:38I don't believe in others,
00:10:40nor in adults,
00:10:42but those are some of the first scenes
00:10:44that I remember when I think about it.
00:10:46You mention the sea,
00:10:48you go to the sea in the 90s,
00:10:50and from that sea,
00:10:52in fact, there is no return to Vukovar.
00:10:54Well, yes,
00:10:56I left Vukovar for the summer,
00:10:58and the first time after that,
00:11:00I returned to Vukovar in 1997,
00:11:02actually, before that, no,
00:11:04we went, we were supposed to be
00:11:06in Vukovar,
00:11:08however, the situation in the city
00:11:10became more and more complicated,
00:11:12we were advised not to return,
00:11:14my brother and I were alone,
00:11:16after a while, my mother came to us,
00:11:18because she wanted to be with us,
00:11:20my father stayed,
00:11:22and then we had to go somewhere from that sea,
00:11:24then we went to Zagreb,
00:11:26if something happens, it happens in Zagreb,
00:11:28we had a relative there,
00:11:30who took us in for a few months,
00:11:32so we ended up there.
00:11:34From that summer,
00:11:36you end up in Zagreb,
00:11:38as a child, you experience
00:11:40the beginning of the war,
00:11:42how did you explain that to yourself?
00:11:44Well, I don't know,
00:11:46through the stories of others,
00:11:48probably adults,
00:11:50yes, when you are a child,
00:11:52somehow, you have that filter
00:11:54through which you receive things,
00:11:56and shocks, and bad news,
00:11:58and you can't understand it all,
00:12:00you simply are not mature enough for it,
00:12:02and you realize that it comes much later,
00:12:04and when you are a child,
00:12:06you somehow play through it,
00:12:08and all the bad things that happen,
00:12:10enter through the game,
00:12:12in a way, your world,
00:12:14so I think that the awakening
00:12:16comes much later.
00:12:18In Zagreb, from the beginning,
00:12:20everything was nice,
00:12:22everything was great,
00:12:24I didn't have to learn anything at school,
00:12:26it was wonderful, I had a certificate,
00:12:28but it didn't last long.
00:12:30How do you see it?
00:12:32It changes, it's natural somehow,
00:12:34I think that every miracle
00:12:36is three days in one city,
00:12:38after some time,
00:12:40we had a wonderful family
00:12:42that accepted us,
00:12:44but after a few months,
00:12:46it was really hard for them,
00:12:48a lot of houses, people,
00:12:50no one had any money,
00:12:52it was all somehow,
00:12:54terribly unknown,
00:12:56and the expenses were high,
00:12:58but it's natural,
00:13:00people are like that,
00:13:02people deal with their problems,
00:13:04they live their lives,
00:13:06and they can give a certain amount of energy,
00:13:08to help someone,
00:13:10but it's not endless.
00:13:12It's an eternal thing.
00:13:14After a while, you realize
00:13:16that you can't be with your family anymore,
00:13:18your mother, brother,
00:13:20what do you do then?
00:13:22Then my mother,
00:13:24one day,
00:13:26she left her biography,
00:13:28we heard about one apartment
00:13:30in Zagreb,
00:13:32which was empty at that time,
00:13:34and we simply didn't have
00:13:36where to live anymore,
00:13:38and my mother said,
00:13:40ok, we'll move into that apartment,
00:13:42I don't want that apartment,
00:13:44but we'll have to live somewhere,
00:13:46when we're in that apartment,
00:13:48we won't be thrown out on the street,
00:13:50it wasn't our goal to move into
00:13:52someone's apartment and live in Zagreb,
00:13:54that we're here,
00:13:56and that we exist,
00:13:58and that we don't have a roof over our heads,
00:14:00and when the police came,
00:14:02I don't remember,
00:14:04because I wasn't there,
00:14:06when my mother came into the apartment,
00:14:08the first thing she did,
00:14:10she called the police,
00:14:12and said, hello,
00:14:14I'm this and that,
00:14:16I came into this apartment,
00:14:18so you come now.
00:14:20Your mother didn't throw anyone out of the apartment?
00:14:22No.
00:14:24But in that period,
00:14:26when my mother came into the apartment,
00:14:28there was no one in that apartment,
00:14:30and I know,
00:14:32that she later told me,
00:14:34through laughter,
00:14:36that it took her 10 years of life,
00:14:38because when she came into the apartment,
00:14:40the first thing she did,
00:14:42she opened the fridge,
00:14:44and there was one egg in the fridge,
00:14:46and she thought,
00:14:48ok, it's over,
00:14:50so they threw us out of that apartment,
00:14:52but then we found accommodation in Kumrovac,
00:14:54in the former political school.
00:14:56Yes, you say,
00:14:58that you were deluged out of the apartment,
00:15:00but you didn't live there alone,
00:15:02a number of people increased.
00:15:04A little by little,
00:15:06there were three of us,
00:15:08then my grandma came,
00:15:10I simply call her grandma,
00:15:12because she's from Herzegovina,
00:15:14she came from Vukovar,
00:15:16after my grandson was sent to Vukovar,
00:15:18then our friends came,
00:15:20my mom's friend and her son-in-law,
00:15:22who were placed in a pool,
00:15:24and there were, I think,
00:15:2650 of them in one room,
00:15:28it was really hard for them,
00:15:30and we were simply good,
00:15:32and it was normal for all of us to be together,
00:15:34and then my other grandparents came,
00:15:36who stayed in Vukovar,
00:15:38but they were in the part of the city
00:15:40where there were a little better Chetniks,
00:15:42so they didn't beat them up and throw them out,
00:15:44they just forced them to sign a house deed,
00:15:46and then they moved to Vukovar from 1992,
00:15:48after that they were thrown out of the city,
00:15:50and they came to us,
00:15:52so the number of people increased to eight
00:15:54in that two-bedroom apartment.
00:15:56Here you mentioned the fact
00:15:58that your grandfather was slandered.
00:16:00The word slander,
00:16:02how do you explain it?
00:16:04Well, the word slander,
00:16:06I was actually very upset,
00:16:08because I remember exactly that day,
00:16:10and I describe that scene in the novel,
00:16:12we were still at that shelter,
00:16:14behind that electric stove,
00:16:16and of course sometimes I listened
00:16:18to what the elders were saying,
00:16:20they didn't really want to say anything to us,
00:16:22and then I heard that my grandfather
00:16:24and grandmother were slandered.
00:16:26Then they thought that my grandmother
00:16:28also stayed with him,
00:16:30however it turned out that they
00:16:32spared her, and I would like
00:16:34to have another word for it,
00:16:36but it just happened that way,
00:16:38they did it to her,
00:16:40and I can't say anything else.
00:16:42No, that's abstract,
00:16:44when you're a child,
00:16:46it's very abstract,
00:16:48it's like watching a movie,
00:16:50you can't understand it,
00:16:52you simply don't have enough maturity
00:16:54in your brain, in your heart.
00:16:56Do you see that there are probably
00:16:58some emotions that people
00:17:00bring to you, and you express them?
00:17:02Of course, of course,
00:17:04and you feel it,
00:17:06and it enters you,
00:17:08but you have that filter
00:17:10You say that after
00:17:12moving out of the apartment,
00:17:14you find accommodation
00:17:16in Kumrovac.
00:17:18The book you wrote,
00:17:20Hotel Zagore,
00:17:22what was the arrival like in Kumrovac?
00:17:24Well, the arrival was also
00:17:26quite traumatic,
00:17:28because in Kumrovac they actually
00:17:30moved a group of people,
00:17:32that is, the leaders who had
00:17:34lived in the Zagreb Hotel Holiday,
00:17:36we heard about it,
00:17:38and when we came to Kumrovac,
00:17:40it turned out that there were
00:17:42a number of rooms just for those people,
00:17:44and some were not very happy
00:17:46that we were there,
00:17:48and they wanted us to go there,
00:17:50and I remember those scenes
00:17:52when we stood at the reception
00:17:54and tried to get our place in that hotel,
00:17:56some people shouted,
00:17:58well, Dobranci, get out,
00:18:00you have nothing to do here.
00:18:02I mean, these are people,
00:18:04that's what this novel is about,
00:18:06they are not Zagreb's negative people
00:18:08or Zagreb's negative people,
00:18:10they are just people,
00:18:12and these are people in a situation
00:18:14where they are completely overgrown
00:18:16and where they have no control
00:18:18over what is happening in their lives
00:18:20and in the lives of their loved ones,
00:18:22and then they simply become frightened,
00:18:24small, shy, and fight only for their place.
00:18:26However, there were also ok people there,
00:18:28as they are always found,
00:18:30and we managed to get one room
00:18:32on the third floor,
00:18:34but at that time
00:18:36it looked like a gain for us,
00:18:38and we thought
00:18:40that we would be there for a while,
00:18:42until things get a little better,
00:18:44and then we go back,
00:18:46and six or seven years have passed
00:18:48since then.
00:18:50You say you experience it
00:18:52as a gain, but your mother,
00:18:54at least that's what you write in the book,
00:18:56when she enters the room,
00:18:58she starts crying,
00:19:00she sees that...
00:19:02Yesterday you lived a normal life
00:19:04in your apartment with your husband,
00:19:06with your family,
00:19:08and suddenly you realize
00:19:10that it's a gain for you,
00:19:12a small room, and that's why
00:19:14you should be happy.
00:19:16And somehow you get the impression
00:19:18from all the other people around you,
00:19:20well, it's good for you,
00:19:22you are in a hotel,
00:19:24they would take care of you,
00:19:26and that thesis starts to spread,
00:19:28and I think it spread for a long time
00:19:30in many areas of society.
00:19:32Yes, whatever you want.
00:19:34Well, you got it, you get everything.
00:19:36For all that time,
00:19:38what happened to your father?
00:19:40Did he call you?
00:19:42My father called on the 19th,
00:19:44the 11th,
00:19:46a phone call,
00:19:48I didn't get it,
00:19:50it was at night,
00:19:52but it was early in the morning,
00:19:54and he said,
00:19:56I'm alive, I'm healthy,
00:19:58and we went crazy from happiness,
00:20:00and we bought a cake, meat,
00:20:02and we waited for him all day,
00:20:04he didn't call after that,
00:20:06and we thought,
00:20:08they must be in Vinkovci,
00:20:10they must be being deported,
00:20:12and when we saw that it wasn't even that,
00:20:14when people came back from the breakthrough,
00:20:16we thought, of course,
00:20:18he must be in prison,
00:20:20a lot of people were in prison,
00:20:22in some kind of camp,
00:20:24and then we waited for months,
00:20:26they took him to some place,
00:20:28but nothing happened,
00:20:30and the worst thing about his disappearance,
00:20:32for me,
00:20:34is that you don't know
00:20:36when you stopped waiting,
00:20:38because it's obvious that we stopped waiting,
00:20:40I mean, after 18 years,
00:20:42no one waits for him anymore,
00:20:44he probably didn't wait for him after 15,
00:20:46after 10, after 7,
00:20:48but at some point,
00:20:50there's no moment when someone tells you
00:20:52that your loved one died,
00:20:54and at that moment,
00:20:56your life turns around,
00:20:58and you're broken,
00:21:00but then, little by little,
00:21:02life goes on,
00:21:04and you have to live somehow,
00:21:06but that moment lasts for years,
00:21:08and it lasts for years,
00:21:10and you feel like you stopped waiting for him,
00:21:12and you don't know when you stopped waiting for him,
00:21:14and you can't connect to a single thing
00:21:16in that life,
00:21:18and it lasts,
00:21:20even today,
00:21:22and in the beginning,
00:21:24and you write about it,
00:21:26she tried to do the same with the widows,
00:21:28well, yes, the widows were...
00:21:30I mean, this is an amazing story,
00:21:32but in your book,
00:21:34you try to avoid the pathos,
00:21:36let me ask you,
00:21:38the pathos, the pain,
00:21:40the pain is pathos in itself,
00:21:42maybe in the book,
00:21:44it's not good,
00:21:46but in life,
00:21:48the pathos is present,
00:21:50it's artificially created,
00:21:52so when you try to
00:21:54artificially create
00:21:56that feeling of pain,
00:21:58anger, pain,
00:22:00and hatred,
00:22:02so that it becomes inappropriate,
00:22:04so that it becomes excessive,
00:22:06but the pain is something else,
00:22:08but it can't be made up of just pain,
00:22:10the one who reads my novel
00:22:12sees that there's a lot of laughter in it,
00:22:14because that's something
00:22:16life is made of,
00:22:18the widows.
00:22:20The widows.
00:22:22Well, the widows were popular at the time,
00:22:24because when you're left without
00:22:26all the other opportunities to find out
00:22:28what happened to your husband,
00:22:30father, or anyone else,
00:22:32there are a lot of those widows,
00:22:34and then we heard some stories
00:22:36that a certain widower
00:22:38really hit him,
00:22:40and that he found out
00:22:42exactly what happened,
00:22:44and I think we are people,
00:22:46and it's normal,
00:22:48at some point in life,
00:22:50you ask yourself what's going to happen to you tomorrow,
00:22:52but you won't take your phone
00:22:54and call the widower
00:22:56and ask him how you're doing,
00:22:58but it's such an abnormal situation
00:23:00that you don't know
00:23:02what to do anymore,
00:23:04you catch a cold,
00:23:06but we quickly gave up
00:23:08on the widower,
00:23:10because after a while
00:23:12you realize that they probably
00:23:14don't care about you anymore.
00:23:16You write a lot about it in the book,
00:23:18and it even causes some controversy,
00:23:20but let me answer you,
00:23:22and then we'll go on.
00:23:24Well, the adaptation to the widower,
00:23:26that's an interesting situation
00:23:28where a group of people
00:23:30from one city
00:23:32is catapulted, exiled,
00:23:34forcibly relocated to another place
00:23:36where they have to
00:23:38start living as before,
00:23:40and now we come there,
00:23:42and there are those widowers
00:23:44that we don't understand anything about,
00:23:46and we don't know what's going to happen to us,
00:23:48our life is completely uncertain,
00:23:50the fate of our fathers,
00:23:52brothers, and so on,
00:23:54and now, of course,
00:23:56in that situation you feel
00:23:58a terrible threat,
00:24:00and you feel hostility towards the people
00:24:02you came among,
00:24:04so I can't emphasize enough
00:24:06that it's not about the widowers,
00:24:08but about the story of one girl,
00:24:10and it's about her life,
00:24:12and the way she saw the world around her,
00:24:14and if you were a widower,
00:24:16or if her family came to Istria,
00:24:18or to Dalmatia, or anywhere else,
00:24:20it would probably be the same,
00:24:22because you don't come to a place
00:24:24under normal circumstances
00:24:26because you wanted to move there,
00:24:28but because someone forced you there,
00:24:30and you can't have the feeling
00:24:32of excitement, of welcome,
00:24:34and you don't expect to find something good there,
00:24:36because the good you had in life
00:24:38and that's it.
00:24:40Children know how to be there,
00:24:42children are amateurs,
00:24:44children know how to be harsh in such situations.
00:24:46Children are very cruel,
00:24:48and I think it's a natural thing,
00:24:50you simply look for your place in the world,
00:24:52you look for your identity,
00:24:54you want to prove yourself,
00:24:56and you always prove yourself
00:24:58on the basis of others,
00:25:00you can't prove yourself
00:25:02without taking others into account,
00:25:04and I think it's normal
00:25:06to have groups, clans, gangs,
00:25:08we can call them whatever we want,
00:25:10but I think the most normal situation
00:25:12that could happen
00:25:14is that a group of children
00:25:16from Vukovar, and a group of children
00:25:18from Kumrovac, come and have fun.
00:25:20I mean, nothing is more natural
00:25:22than that, because it's simply
00:25:24a part of growing up,
00:25:26and a part of a completely
00:25:28abnormal and atypical situation
00:25:30in which those two groups found themselves.
00:25:32People in Zagorje live their normal lives,
00:25:34and then 500 Vukovars come into their lives,
00:25:36with whom they don't know what to do,
00:25:38and there were wonderful people
00:25:40who waited for us and wanted to help us,
00:25:42but I keep repeating,
00:25:44it's not about them,
00:25:46it's about the story of that girl
00:25:48and the world she saw,
00:25:50or the world around her.
00:25:52And Tito was also to blame
00:25:54for a lot of that,
00:25:56you came to the place where he was born,
00:25:58where his monument is,
00:26:00how did the children feel about Tito?
00:26:02One of the paradoxes of that situation
00:26:04is, imagine now,
00:26:06moving 500 Vukovars to an elite
00:26:08former communist school,
00:26:10and if we remember how it all started,
00:26:12it all started with Tito,
00:26:14and of course Tito was not to blame,
00:26:16who else would, except for the Serbs.
00:26:18And we had to dedicate ourselves to him,
00:26:20and that was also a part of our...
00:26:22You feel that...
00:26:24You feel in yourself...
00:26:26You come into that room and see
00:26:28your mother, how poor and sad she is,
00:26:30and you see that you have nothing,
00:26:32and you have to be angry at someone.
00:26:34And Tito is there, just a few meters away
00:26:36from his birthplace.
00:26:38And then we wrote a lot
00:26:40in his memorial book,
00:26:42and we didn't do anything
00:26:44really terrible,
00:26:46we stole these plastic exhibits,
00:26:48apples,
00:26:50baked pigs from ethno-villages,
00:26:52and so on, those little things,
00:26:54and that was fun in one hand,
00:26:56and I think that every child
00:26:58would like to work at some point,
00:27:00and on the other hand,
00:27:02it was kind of cathartic,
00:27:04because we felt like we were
00:27:06confessing to someone who was really
00:27:08to blame for the situation we were in.
00:27:10Your father passed away.
00:27:12How did you achieve social justice
00:27:14at that time? Do you have it?
00:27:16What do you live on?
00:27:18Well, actually, at one time
00:27:20we only got that promotional jacket
00:27:22that was worth 100 kunas a month.
00:27:24My mother worked all that time,
00:27:26she did everything
00:27:28to have money,
00:27:30because in the beginning of the 90s,
00:27:32the rights of the dead Croatian defenders
00:27:34and the missing Croatian defenders
00:27:36were not equal,
00:27:38and for a long time,
00:27:40they were not equal,
00:27:42and then we didn't have
00:27:44a special incentive
00:27:46that would make our lives easier,
00:27:48that happened only a few years later.
00:27:50How old were you then?
00:27:52Six, seven years.
00:27:54That was the time when your
00:27:56status rights were being violated.
00:27:58Did that waiting kill you?
00:28:00You've already talked about
00:28:02waiting for your father.
00:28:04Do you wait for your father to come back,
00:28:06do you wait for the city to be free,
00:28:08do you wait for the housing issue
00:28:10to be solved?
00:28:12That waiting is really something
00:28:14that marked me all those years,
00:28:16and it's so...
00:28:18It's like a coffee process.
00:28:20You wait, but you don't know
00:28:22what you're actually waiting for,
00:28:24and who you're waiting for,
00:28:26because wherever you go,
00:28:28you're always on the way to someone
00:28:30who will solve your problems,
00:28:32and then they take you
00:28:34to someone else,
00:28:36and you don't really have
00:28:38any control over your life.
00:28:40You can't do anything
00:28:42to change the situation
00:28:44you're in, except wait.
00:28:46That waiting is marked
00:28:48by the visit of various housing committees.
00:28:50Your mother tried,
00:28:52she went from one room to another.
00:28:54If I'm not mistaken,
00:28:56the president of Tudjman...
00:28:58We contacted the president of Tudjman
00:29:00at one point, my brother wrote him a letter.
00:29:02I can say from my perspective
00:29:04how I experienced it.
00:29:06I thought they were some big,
00:29:08smart, serious people
00:29:10who really cared about us,
00:29:12but right now they don't have
00:29:14a single free housing unit,
00:29:16so they would help us solve
00:29:18our problems.
00:29:20We should just be persistent
00:29:22and show how we can be patient
00:29:24and that in the end,
00:29:26everything will turn out well.
00:29:28Getting a flat is also...
00:29:30It's always talked about
00:29:32how many people got a flat.
00:29:34I mean, we lived somewhere
00:29:36before the war.
00:29:38We didn't live in a basement
00:29:40or on the street.
00:29:42We lived in a flat in Vukovar
00:29:44that we rented after we got
00:29:46one flat for another.
00:29:48But in society, there is also
00:29:50a kind of mystification
00:29:52of people who got a flat.
00:29:54A lot of those people
00:29:56didn't live anywhere before
00:29:58they got a flat.
00:30:00They didn't live on the street.
00:30:02I mean, something happened
00:30:04to those houses and flats.
00:30:06But at that time,
00:30:08we just wanted to get
00:30:10a place under the sun,
00:30:12with a roof over our heads,
00:30:14and a nice brother.
00:30:16You didn't get along
00:30:18very well as teenagers.
00:30:20But your brother also tried
00:30:22to help you solve
00:30:24the problem of the flat.
00:30:26How old was he?
00:30:28I think he was about
00:30:3018, 17, or 18.
00:30:32He was 16 when it all happened.
00:30:34I think he was
00:30:36under a lot of pressure.
00:30:38I was young,
00:30:40so I saw things differently.
00:30:42We were left without a father,
00:30:44and he had a feeling
00:30:46that things would take over.
00:30:48I think it cost him a lot.
00:30:50He understood the situation
00:30:52that was far beyond him,
00:30:54and that should be far beyond him,
00:30:56and his age,
00:30:58and the possibility of someone
00:31:00who is 16.
00:31:02But he didn't know any other way.
00:31:04He simply wrote letters
00:31:06to the presidents,
00:31:08to the polling stations,
00:31:10and that's how our problem
00:31:12was solved.
00:31:14Here is an excerpt
00:31:16from one of the letters
00:31:18to the president.
00:31:20You can comment on it.
00:31:22Dear Mr. President,
00:31:24at the very beginning
00:31:26I have to tell you
00:31:28that writing this letter
00:31:30caused me great distress,
00:31:32and perhaps disappointment.
00:31:34Believe me,
00:31:36I didn't know who to turn to,
00:31:38and I would like to ask you
00:31:40for your kindness.
00:31:42Therefore, I would ask you
00:31:44to find some time
00:31:46and read this letter to the end,
00:31:48because it's not just about me.
00:31:50And don't blame me
00:31:52for my carelessness,
00:31:54because this is the first letter
00:31:56of this kind,
00:31:58and for a special reason.
00:32:00I am the son of a deceased
00:32:02Croatian defender from Vukovar,
00:32:04and I am currently staying
00:32:06in Croatia.
00:32:08I want to write to you
00:32:10about my pain,
00:32:12which I have never told anyone.
00:32:14I want to ask you for help,
00:32:16because I believe
00:32:18you can help me.
00:32:20The first thing
00:32:22that really hurts me
00:32:24is the war profiteering
00:32:26in our homeland.
00:32:28Many people who were
00:32:30a few years ago
00:32:32are now people
00:32:34and that's how it is.
00:32:36There is a saying in the people,
00:32:38some say war,
00:32:40and some say brotherhood.
00:32:42I take the right
00:32:44in the name of the other children
00:32:46to ask you to help us
00:32:48live a life worthy of man,
00:32:50when we have not,
00:32:52like our elders,
00:32:54lived the most beautiful years
00:32:56of our childhood.
00:32:58It was hard every evening
00:33:00until late at night
00:33:02to return to our room,
00:33:04the size of 10 square meters,
00:33:06where we found our mother
00:33:08with tears in her eyes
00:33:10because of father's absence,
00:33:12and to eat a cold meal,
00:33:14if you can call it that
00:33:16because of the size
00:33:18we got for lunch.
00:33:20It was even harder for us
00:33:22because we saw that our mother
00:33:24had a hard time because
00:33:26we could not warm her up,
00:33:28but we did not have a stove.
00:33:30Our childhood did not know
00:33:32what brotherhood meant,
00:33:34and when we lost everything,
00:33:36we realized the difference
00:33:38between having and not having.
00:33:40But in those moments
00:33:42we kept thinking of our father
00:33:44and his return,
00:33:46while many others
00:33:48pulled out their cars,
00:33:50houses, monuments,
00:33:52and I do not want to remember
00:33:54why not.
00:33:56I ask you to help us,
00:33:58and I do not want to put you
00:34:00on a chair.
00:34:02I do not ask for any great thanks,
00:34:04but just a little respect and help.
00:34:06I ask you to help me solve
00:34:08a big problem,
00:34:10and that is the housing issue,
00:34:12and as soon as possible,
00:34:14because I want to finish college,
00:34:16and in such circumstances
00:34:18I really can not teach anymore.
00:34:20In high school I have excellent grades.
00:34:22In this small room in Kumrovac
00:34:24it is difficult.
00:34:26I thank you for your help,
00:34:28and you are our last hope.
00:34:30Do not let us,
00:34:32when we are already expelled from Vukovar,
00:34:34be expelled again from Croatia
00:34:36because there is no place for us
00:34:38under that much desired Croatian sun.
00:34:40It would be the hardest for me
00:34:42if I had to go and earn
00:34:44bread for my mother and sister
00:34:46in another world.
00:34:48I want to thank you for reading this letter
00:34:50and forgive me if I took
00:34:52a lot of your time.
00:34:54This is the most sincere letter
00:34:56I have ever written.
00:34:58Thank you in advance.
00:35:00With respect.
00:35:04You say your brother surprised you
00:35:06when you read that letter.
00:35:08Well, I think, as far as I remember,
00:35:10it was his first letter
00:35:12to the President Tudjman,
00:35:14and it is interesting to see
00:35:16the gradation in the novel,
00:35:18how that letter goes.
00:35:20He is very naive at first
00:35:22and thinks that,
00:35:24as we all thought,
00:35:26something will change after that letter.
00:35:28However, the years go by,
00:35:30he still writes letters,
00:35:32they are getting shorter
00:35:34and shorter,
00:35:36while after the last letter
00:35:38you read, you ask yourself
00:35:40who would normally give them a place
00:35:42after writing such a letter.
00:35:44But that's actually the point
00:35:46of the whole story.
00:35:48But I would like to emphasize again
00:35:50that this is not a novel.
00:35:52It is a novel written
00:35:54on the basis of my life experience
00:35:56and a lot of things that happen
00:35:58in that novel are the things
00:36:00that happened to me in life.
00:36:02However, I need to say
00:36:04that it is a literary work
00:36:06and that it is fiction
00:36:08and in some moments
00:36:10it has completely invented details,
00:36:12completely invented episodes.
00:36:14And today some people
00:36:16appear to me,
00:36:18there are no documentary facts,
00:36:20there are names of some people
00:36:22according to whom
00:36:24suggestions for book characters
00:36:26have been created.
00:36:28Some people got to know each other
00:36:30and are not quite satisfied
00:36:32with their treatment in the novel.
00:36:34However, I would like to separate
00:36:36those two things and say
00:36:38that I tried to tell the story
00:36:40of that girl and to capture
00:36:42the atmosphere that ruled
00:36:44those years in our society,
00:36:46but I did not want to hurt anyone
00:36:48and I did not talk about
00:36:50anyone's life except
00:36:52about the life of that girl.
00:36:54So, some people appear...
00:36:56Well, yes, I guess
00:36:58you are referring to this email
00:37:00where a lady says
00:37:02that she did not manage
00:37:04to read the whole book,
00:37:06but the part that talks about
00:37:08growing up in Zagorje is horrible.
00:37:10That is the perspective
00:37:12of a 9-year-old child.
00:37:14The attitudes of a 9-year-old
00:37:16and a 15-year-old girl
00:37:18in the novel are not the attitudes
00:37:20that I, the author of that novel,
00:37:22have towards the world today
00:37:24or I had them before.
00:37:26My attitudes about Zagorje,
00:37:28I mean, anyone who knows me
00:37:30knows that I do not think
00:37:32that Zagorjeans are like that,
00:37:34Dalmatians are like that,
00:37:36but it is simply about
00:37:38that her life path was like that
00:37:40and that the things that happened
00:37:42to her, she saw people
00:37:44who got pensions,
00:37:46she saw people who were happy
00:37:48around her, she just
00:37:50talked about everything
00:37:52the way she saw it.
00:37:54I did not mention
00:37:56anyone else's story,
00:37:58I did not mention
00:38:00anyone's last name,
00:38:02maybe some names match.
00:38:04But my God.
00:38:06But my God.
00:38:08Mom,
00:38:10how did you recover from the trauma
00:38:12that you experienced?
00:38:14We recovered, I think, well.
00:38:16Although, once upon a time,
00:38:18in that growing up,
00:38:20my God, in every family
00:38:22there will be some conflicts
00:38:24and all of that together.
00:38:26What I am serious about today
00:38:28and as a mother myself,
00:38:30I can say that I extremely appreciate
00:38:32my mother because of everything
00:38:34that happened in her life,
00:38:36and she managed to preserve
00:38:38some warmth for other people around her.
00:38:40She never taught us to hate each other,
00:38:42she never told us
00:38:44that we are all the same,
00:38:46but she always encouraged us
00:38:48to work, to learn,
00:38:50to finish school
00:38:52and to find our way
00:38:54in the whole story.
00:38:56The attitude towards Serbs.
00:38:58Yes.
00:39:00How does it change?
00:39:02You describe it in the book,
00:39:04so I will quote you,
00:39:06who lies, he steals,
00:39:08who steals, he kills, who kills, he is a Serb.
00:39:10That's how it was in the 90's
00:39:12from our perspective,
00:39:14at least those whose family members
00:39:16were killed.
00:39:18I have that problem with Serbs.
00:39:20Of course, I don't think
00:39:22that everyone on the other side is the same,
00:39:24but what happened
00:39:26from my trauma,
00:39:28I am talking about today,
00:39:30is a certain feeling of handicappedness
00:39:32when I am in a society
00:39:34with people who come from the other side.
00:39:36Not because I really think
00:39:38that I am afraid that someone will do something to me,
00:39:40or because I think that they are all the same,
00:39:42but simply because,
00:39:44for example, I imagine coming to Belgrade,
00:39:46and there I see a room with pictures
00:39:48of Draza Mihailović,
00:39:50I see some graffiti,
00:39:52and I see those people who pass by,
00:39:54and they don't do anything,
00:39:56it's normal for them,
00:39:58and they live in such a society,
00:40:00and I can't get out of it,
00:40:02and that's why I have this trauma.
00:40:04In Očar, according to the reports
00:40:06from the trial, 150-200 Serbs
00:40:08who committed crimes,
00:40:1017 of them were charged with those crimes,
00:40:12the verdict was again destroyed.
00:40:14Some of those people know.
00:40:16I mean, a lot of people who are in the environment
00:40:18know where the displaced people are.
00:40:22These are some things I can't go over.
00:40:24Although I met, of course,
00:40:26some exceptional people
00:40:28who come from Serbia, from Belgrade,
00:40:30to change the whole story.
00:40:32That's what I wanted to say. Don't generalize.
00:40:34Of course, don't generalize.
00:40:35In the morning, you were recently given two pages about their 12-year exhibition,
00:40:40and many would be surprised by the fact that you, out of three authors,
00:40:45so to speak, three editors, chose the guys from Belgrade who...
00:40:48Yes, I did. I met them relatively recently,
00:40:52and they surprised me with the way they work in that society.
00:40:57They are obstructed from all sides, no one likes them,
00:41:00they are thrown out from wherever they can be thrown out.
00:41:02However, for the sake of all of us, and for themselves,
00:41:06they are trying to find that truth.
00:41:11They are fighting for justice somehow,
00:41:13and they are fighting for everything that happened in the 90s,
00:41:16to bring them together as a society, so that they can continue,
00:41:19and not to build the whole story on some completely wrong and false foundations.
00:41:23So, I'm not generalizing, but I have that problem,
00:41:26because there are too many things between me and the other side,
00:41:29which still haven't been solved after 18 years.
00:41:33Your story, at least in this book, ends in a way...
00:41:36We won't get to it now, but we saw something in the introduction,
00:41:40you go to high school in Zagreb, there are certain problems,
00:41:43this is almost the fall of the year,
00:41:45however, these are some formative years,
00:41:47where, as you yourself say, you are looking for...
00:41:49You get a flat.
00:41:51So, let me ask you, this show is really a story about a flat,
00:41:54how do you feel when you say, in our family,
00:41:57there was no saying, dad is alive, and we got a flat?
00:42:00When you say, we got a flat, what does that look like?
00:42:04Well, that was actually a terribly powerful moment,
00:42:09when we somehow...
00:42:11It's like nothing is happening,
00:42:13when you've been waiting for something for a long time,
00:42:15and when you've been waiting for so long,
00:42:17and it's finally happening, you can't believe that it's actually happening.
00:42:20And then it starts, around the flat, and the excitement,
00:42:23and when it somehow settles down,
00:42:25and when things calm down a bit,
00:42:27then you realize that you haven't been left without a flat,
00:42:30but you've actually been left without something,
00:42:32that no one can replace,
00:42:34and that there is no flat where you can live,
00:42:36and where you can feel normal,
00:42:38because you've lost something.
00:42:40In my case, I can talk about myself,
00:42:42what is it that I've been left without,
00:42:44in this war, next to my father,
00:42:46and next to life in Vukovar,
00:42:48is that I have that feeling that everything is possible,
00:42:51that something terrible can happen at any moment,
00:42:54and sometimes it's hard to live with it.
00:42:56How do you deal with it now, as a mother?
00:42:59It's not easy for me.
00:43:01Sometimes it's easy for me, sometimes it's not easy at all,
00:43:04because my life experience has taught me
00:43:06that I can live my life normally,
00:43:08that I don't touch anyone, I don't do anything to anyone,
00:43:11and then someone comes and creates total chaos for me.
00:43:14And I...
00:43:15One time my husband and I...
00:43:17I told him,
00:43:18we have two kids, we have our own apartment, it's great for us,
00:43:21what do you think, if the Chetniks come to our door,
00:43:23and he starts laughing,
00:43:24and I tell him, why are you laughing?
00:43:26Well, it's not something so unreal.
00:43:28My life has taught me that it's possible.
00:43:30It doesn't have to be them, it can be someone else.
00:43:32And that's that terrible feeling,
00:43:34where you're waiting all the time for something,
00:43:36and you learn, as if you've been cursed,
00:43:38that it's possible, that absolutely everything can happen.
00:43:41Is that feeling smaller or constant over the years?
00:43:44Now it sounds like psychotherapy, but...
00:43:46No, he didn't have that feeling,
00:43:48he didn't have it until my early twenties,
00:43:50until I somehow managed to slowly start to realize
00:43:55what had happened to me,
00:43:56and then that feeling became terribly strong,
00:43:58and I somehow try to bring his consciousness
00:44:01to some normal levels,
00:44:03sometimes successful, sometimes less successful,
00:44:05but it works.
00:44:06You try.
00:44:09These days I...
00:44:10I said I would ask you,
00:44:12you know that,
00:44:13that I would ask you some questions
00:44:14about, let's say, the current moment of COVID-19.
00:44:16The current story is about the Register of Defenders.
00:44:19Your father was a defender.
00:44:21How do you look at the whole controversy around that?
00:44:24Well, I wouldn't really make a lot of smart rules
00:44:27about that question,
00:44:28because, well, I'm not convinced enough.
00:44:30Would it bother you if your father's name appeared somewhere?
00:44:33No, it wouldn't bother me,
00:44:35but what bothers me is the way it's done,
00:44:38and the way the media follows it,
00:44:41and the way they talk about it,
00:44:43if they don't do anything else.
00:44:45So, the first lesson is to live in a civilized
00:44:48and normal society,
00:44:49where the laws are respected.
00:44:51If that's not there,
00:44:52everything else that comes to mind
00:44:54becomes something else.
00:44:55So, what I absolutely disagree with
00:44:58is the way it's done,
00:45:00and it's completely clear to me
00:45:01why people want to know
00:45:03who was the defender,
00:45:04who had the authority.
00:45:06It's absolutely clear to me,
00:45:07because, simply,
00:45:08from my perspective,
00:45:09there are far too many of those people.
00:45:12One more thing,
00:45:13these days,
00:45:14actually, today,
00:45:15specifically,
00:45:16the commemoration is in Jasenovac,
00:45:19or, on the other hand,
00:45:20in Dubica, if I'm not mistaken,
00:45:22and the Serbian President Tadic will be there.
00:45:25What is your attitude
00:45:27towards the fact
00:45:29that he could or should
00:45:33come to Vukovar one day?
00:45:35There were some stories and announcements.
00:45:37Did that mean anything to you?
00:45:39I think he should come,
00:45:40and not just one day,
00:45:41but I think he should come soon,
00:45:43because visiting Jasenovac,
00:45:45Blajburg,
00:45:46all of that should be there,
00:45:48but that means something
00:45:49on a symbolic level,
00:45:51because the families of the victims
00:45:52who died there,
00:45:53they are no longer there,
00:45:54that was a long time ago,
00:45:55and if it continues at that pace,
00:45:57then we can expect
00:45:58the President of Serbia
00:45:59to be in Vukovar in 50 years, probably.
00:46:01If he wants to achieve anything,
00:46:03I think it should be done soon,
00:46:05because then...
00:46:06Now, that means something to me,
00:46:08to my family,
00:46:09and maybe to the families
00:46:10of those whose members
00:46:11were killed in Ovčar,
00:46:12and that would mean something now.
00:46:13In 50 years,
00:46:14I doubt that it will mean anything to us,
00:46:16except maybe on a symbolic level,
00:46:18so I think that he should come as soon as possible.
00:46:21You succeeded with the book,
00:46:23you were surprised,
00:46:25given that it is a war theme,
00:46:27you do not describe some battles,
00:46:29but it happens during the war
00:46:31and immediately after the war,
00:46:33caused by the war,
00:46:34your fate.
00:46:35Did you expect
00:46:36that no one would read it?
00:46:38No.
00:46:39I did not expect it,
00:46:40I really thought,
00:46:41and I mentioned it several times
00:46:42to my husband while I was working on the book,
00:46:44why am I doing this,
00:46:45who would be interested in this,
00:46:47the 90s are completely dead,
00:46:49people are dealing with their problems,
00:46:51fugitives, Vukovar,
00:46:52who cares about that anymore?
00:46:54What I later thought about
00:46:56when the book achieved that success,
00:46:58why it happened,
00:46:59maybe the difference is simply
00:47:00in the way the story is told.
00:47:02I gave my all
00:47:03to raise the story
00:47:04to a universal level,
00:47:05where it is not important
00:47:06only to Vukovar,
00:47:07only to fugitives,
00:47:08only to someone
00:47:09who lives intensively
00:47:10in the 90s,
00:47:11but that the story
00:47:12is simply vital,
00:47:13because it has growth,
00:47:14it has family relations,
00:47:15it has love,
00:47:16it has hatred,
00:47:17anger,
00:47:18everything that fills
00:47:19our lives,
00:47:20wherever we live,
00:47:21and in whatever way
00:47:22we look at daily politics
00:47:23or anything else.
00:47:24So I'm glad about that,
00:47:25I can't say I'm not,
00:47:26but I really did not expect it.
00:47:27Is writing a subject
00:47:28that is not
00:47:29a subject
00:47:30that is not
00:47:31a subject
00:47:32that is not
00:47:33a subject
00:47:34that is not
00:47:35a subject
00:47:36that is not
00:47:37a subject
00:47:38You write songs, and you're a good singer, and you've been awarded in Lukavdol, if I'm not mistaken.
00:47:48Well, I had some illusions about that writing, that it would solve even more of my life problems.
00:47:54No, I'm kidding. I'm a bit, and everyone told me that when I write it, it will be easier for me.
00:48:00In a way, maybe it is, but nothing has actually changed.
00:48:04What means a lot to me, and what gathers the whole story, or part of the story, is when people call me.
00:48:12When people who lived with me in Kumrovac call me, when people from Vukovar call me, when people from Moraj call me,
00:48:18when they say, I read the book, it shook me, it broke me, thank you, I see things differently, I feel them differently.
00:48:24Well, that's what means a lot to me, because somehow I have a feeling that I didn't just heal my trauma,
00:48:31but a collective trauma that is big and thick, and I think a few people want to admit that.
00:48:37How does your mom react to the book?
00:48:40Well, my mom reacts great, my mom cuts everything out, learns by heart, remembers, and that's what's beautiful,
00:48:46and that's what means a lot to me, because she participated in the process of the creation of my book,
00:48:51because I was writing a book between two kids, and while I was struggling, she helped me a lot physically,
00:48:57she helped and protected my offspring in some moments, while I was struggling with the book,
00:49:02so somehow I consider it our common success.
00:49:07Mom, dad, in fact, this book is also a book in many ways.
00:49:12A hobby?
00:49:13Yes.
00:49:14Yes, it is.
00:49:17What kind of a man was your dad?
00:49:19Well, he was the best to me, now I don't know how much...
00:49:22As far as I remember.
00:49:23As far as I remember, he was kind, warm-hearted, he loved people, and his people loved him, I don't know,
00:49:30he was kind, he wasn't cold-blooded, he wasn't aggressive, he was the kind of dad you could have a great time with.
00:49:39Did you accuse him as a child that he stayed there?
00:49:42Yes, I mean, not as a child, but later, maybe a little, I thought,
00:49:48I mean, wasn't it more important for him to go out with us,
00:49:51so at least, I don't know where he lived and how, but to stay in that city,
00:49:55and then again, on the other hand, what if they all left?
00:49:59What if, simply, no one wanted to stay in Vukovar,
00:50:02but everyone went out and left the city, and Vukovar, then Vinkovce, then Osijek, then every other city.
00:50:09On the one hand, I understand, and I try to understand,
00:50:13but on the other hand, there is a part of me that will probably blame them for that.
00:50:17I wanted to ask you, when you put this relationship in the eye of the beholder,
00:50:20on the one hand, and Croatia, as you see it today.
00:50:23Well, you know what, I mean, it wasn't so much about Croatia,
00:50:28it was partly about Croatia, but it was about us living our lives in Vukovar,
00:50:32and then one day someone came and said,
00:50:35now you won't live here anymore, we will free the city from you.
00:50:40And how do you accept that? It's not about Croatia,
00:50:43it's about the life that my father and mother created for us, for themselves,
00:50:48and suddenly someone comes...
00:50:50Defends Prague.
00:50:51...and wants to take them there. That's it.
00:50:53I mean, Croatia is there, Croatia, but that's your life,
00:50:56you want to defend it, and you want to preserve it.
00:50:59For a long, long time, you didn't know anything about your father,
00:51:03then there was a trial on Ovcar, and you weren't even officially notified, but...
00:51:07No, actually...
00:51:08The trial on Ovcar.
00:51:09Yes, the trial on Ovcar.
00:51:12Well, that's also interesting.
00:51:14Almost ten years ago, we received a call to give blood for identification,
00:51:19in case my father was exhumed.
00:51:22After that, no one ever contacted us again.
00:51:24I don't know if anyone should have contacted us,
00:51:26because they didn't find them in the meantime.
00:51:29There are some details that I learned from the trial in Belgrade,
00:51:34from the victim's family who attended that trial,
00:51:37that my father was among the ten people who went through the hand-treatment,
00:51:42that it was like this, that it was like that.
00:51:44We never received anything official.
00:51:46I don't know if there is any official order that we should be notified about,
00:51:49but I have to admit that it's really hard to find out that information in that way.
00:51:56It's really ugly when someone comes to you and says,
00:51:59hey, listen, I heard that your father was made, that's it.
00:52:03From whom, how, why?
00:52:05I don't know if there should be some kind of system that deals with it.
00:52:09Maybe there is, but...
00:52:10You think it would be easier to...
00:52:12It would be easier, maybe, to have some kind of service,
00:52:15to collect some things and to put some weight on it,
00:52:18and to make it a little more dignified,
00:52:22than to find out about it on the street.
00:52:26In the novel, you write that you often imagine,
00:52:29and you still often imagine how he was killed.
00:52:33You say that you like to think that he was killed among the first,
00:52:36but no matter how much you imagine, you will never be able to imagine that sight.
00:52:39Yes, that's something that I didn't want to imagine for a long time,
00:52:42and I didn't have it in my plan at all.
00:52:45But when I started writing that novel,
00:52:48then somehow, after about a hundred pages,
00:52:51everything led to the fact that that sheepfold had to be resolved.
00:52:55Before that, I have to admit, I didn't even go to the sheepfold,
00:52:59because it was something for me, what would I do there?
00:53:02He was killed there, but he's not even there.
00:53:05What am I supposed to do there?
00:53:08And then I decided to go to the sheepfold,
00:53:11before I finished the book.
00:53:14There is something terrible about it,
00:53:17there is something healing about it,
00:53:20but, I don't know, I got used to it.
00:53:24Sometimes I thought about it,
00:53:27that I knew where I would have to dig deep,
00:53:30but when I started writing that novel,
00:53:33I don't know, it was so easy for me to decide on it.
00:53:36But I'm glad I am now.
00:53:39Did you think that your father was a good man,
00:53:42but that, in fact, not a single good man
00:53:45at that moment found a sheepfold?
00:53:48Yes.
00:53:49Did he owe you a lot?
00:53:51Yes, that's how it is, I don't know,
00:53:54he had a lot of friends, Serbs, Croats, Bosnians,
00:53:57they were all doing services to each other,
00:54:00as friends and acquaintances do.
00:54:03But, I don't know, there was probably
00:54:06some kind of intention from the past.
00:54:09I mean, there are a lot of personal things
00:54:12in those crimes, in those murders,
00:54:15you know, you watch someone live,
00:54:18and you can't do that, and you wait for your 5 minutes,
00:54:21and then your 5 minutes come when you have a gun
00:54:24Yes, that is symptomatic,
00:54:27I don't know if you know the story about Goran Jelisic,
00:54:30the murderer from Omarsk, if I'm not mistaken,
00:54:33who was a completely calm, decent man,
00:54:36but when he got power in the camp,
00:54:39he killed 30 or 50 people.
00:54:42After that, he was completely calm, decent,
00:54:45everything happened in Bosnia-Herzegovina,
00:54:48and the biggest witnesses of the defense, which is a paradox,
00:54:51he was a great man,
00:54:54but when he got that power,
00:54:57when he got a gun in his hand,
00:55:00he became a beast.
00:55:03I got some transcripts from the trial in Ovčar,
00:55:06and among those transcripts,
00:55:09there is a woman who also killed in Ovčar,
00:55:12and one of the defendants accuses her
00:55:15that she said to him,
00:55:18that he was the boss,
00:55:21and he gave her 5 minutes,
00:55:24that's how things were solved.
00:55:27Of course, she denies it, she was never there,
00:55:30but it is clear to all of us.
00:55:33You wrote a beautiful song about your father,
00:55:36we will hear it at the end,
00:55:39it's not the end, we'll be back.
00:55:42I got these thin hands from him.
00:55:45My father, as the real son-in-law
00:55:48of the boss of the hotel room,
00:55:51I watched him at work,
00:55:54hidden behind a poker machine,
00:55:57well-stuffed with chocolate from the duty-free shop,
00:56:00which arrived in Vukovar too late,
00:56:03as well as the international red cross,
00:56:06as well as humanity, as well as everything good
00:56:09that is infinitely late in this part of the world.
00:56:12I got these thin hands from him.
00:56:15It's not my fault,
00:56:18but how could I defend myself from them
00:56:21when they beat him up.
00:56:28In one of the stories you wrote,
00:56:31the wife asks you, tell me about it.
00:56:34Tell me about these hands and all that.
00:56:37Why don't you tell me about it,
00:56:40about Vukovar, and you tell him,
00:56:43looking at your daughter.
00:56:46That's the relationship I'm preparing for.
00:56:49I want to be responsible and smart,
00:56:52and I want to give my best to my child.
00:56:55I'm saying this because
00:56:58I don't think I have the right
00:57:01to burden my child with my personal feelings,
00:57:04heaviness, fear, anger,
00:57:07towards someone or something.
00:57:10On the other hand, I want them to know,
00:57:13I think they have the right to know,
00:57:16my older child, my older daughter,
00:57:19sometimes she asks around,
00:57:22because she saw some photos,
00:57:25some documentaries on TV,
00:57:28she knows there's no grandfather,
00:57:31so she asks where he is, what happened to him,
00:57:34I want to be smart,
00:57:37because I'm sorry,
00:57:40I call these people bad people,
00:57:43I avoid saying they were Serbs,
00:57:46and unfortunately, I would prefer Vukovar
00:57:49to be foreigners than our neighbors,
00:57:52because they came as Serbs,
00:57:55they didn't come as something else,
00:57:58and they weren't individuals,
00:58:01I want my children to know
00:58:04what happened in my life,
00:58:07what happened to their grandfather,
00:58:10and I don't want to hurt their future relations
00:58:13with people from Serbia and other communities.
00:58:16Do you write?
00:58:19Yes, I do.
00:58:22Do you want what you write in the future
00:58:25to be involved in your personal experiences?
00:58:28Something I write about
00:58:31has to be experienced in me in some way.
00:58:34The background for that novel or story
00:58:37can be something else,
00:58:40it can happen to me in the Middle Ages
00:58:43and in the Wild West,
00:58:46but the main story and the main emotion
00:58:49I can write about is something
00:58:52that really touched me,
00:58:55so a book story and a literary background
00:58:58can be something different,
00:59:01but I think it will always be a part of me.
00:59:04You mentioned Vukovar and Kumrovec,
00:59:07what is your relationship to Kumrovec?
00:59:10I recently visited Kumrovec for a long time,
00:59:13I didn't have a need to go there,
00:59:16and then we decided to go to Kumrovec,
00:59:19and I told my daughters about how we were in Vukovar
00:59:22and how we had to move to Kumrovec,
00:59:25so they demolished everything,
00:59:28and we came to Kumrovec,
00:59:31and the political school there
00:59:34has been destroyed a lot over the years,
00:59:37and then some others finished it.
00:59:40We came there in a broken window,
00:59:43and she came out of the car and said,
00:59:46my poor mother, what did they do to you?
00:59:49I met wonderful friends and acquaintances there,
00:59:52and I spent a part of my childhood there.
00:59:55First love was in Zagorje.
00:59:58Yes, first love was in Zagorje,
01:00:01but some people make fun of me
01:00:04because they say that all this is the result of that.
01:00:07Ivan, thank you for being on the show,
01:00:10I wish you success in your work
01:00:13and harmony in the family.
01:00:16That's all for today, see you in a day.
01:00:19Goodbye.
01:00:46.