My Family
I was born in Yugoslavia almost ten years after the end of the Second World War when our country broke its close liaison with the Soviet Union and started to introduce a milder form of communism than the one practiced behind the Iron Curtain.
In the fifties, Yugoslavia had a very low standard of living, but I don’t remember the lack of money ever causing us major problems. On the contrary, many people spoke and wrote enthusiastically of how we citizens were going to live better. My mother, for example, always liked to describe the beauty of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. She was proud that she worked in one of the biggest Yugoslav enterprises and she was convinced that people should be pleased with the life in Yugoslavia. Our teachers indoctrinated us with the idea that Comrade Tito, the lifelong president of Yugoslavia, did his best to help us develop our economy, as well as our comradery. Some twenty years later, when I started to work in the National and University Library, whose archives held the publications of Slovenian emigrants, I still had no idea that thousands of Slovenians were killed after the war. I spent all my youth fully convinced that Yugoslavia was a wonderful and safe country. All of its people were employed. There were no beggars in the streets and no common criminals.
Before the Second World War, my father’s parents had a big farm in the northern part of Slovenia which was one of the six republics in Yugoslavia. My father’s mother was considered an educated woman because she was a nurse who specialized as a midwife. At the beginning of 1941, her husband was killed by German soldiers while she and her children were sent to the concentration camp on the island of Rab. The soldiers tried to pull my father onto the truck, but he managed to run away and hid in his uncle’s house. When my grandmother returned from the camp, she entrusted her children to her relatives and joined the Partisan movement. They offered her work as a nurse, but she refused. She quickly learned how to use a gun and blow up bridges, and then instructed the Partisans to deploy her for the most difficult tasks.
Many years after the end of the war, my mother used to tell me: “Look, this bridge was blown up by your Styrian grandmother.”
The war must have changed her very heart, because the woman who was supposed to help people became a person who had no mercy, neither towards herself nor to her children. At the end of the war, the Partisan Army promoted her to a high rank, gave her a veteran pension, a villa in the country and quite a large estate.
She was a busy and strong woman who had to bring up three children, manage the estate and provide for the housekeeping. Besides this, she was often called to help women in labour. Her children hated her teaching because it was too militaristic. She was always ready to slap someone’s face or at least provide a long lecture on how things should be done. My father was the first to get sick of the old general woman and he left for Ljubljana where he quickly found employment. His sisters married young and left my grandmother’s house as soon as they could. When my grandmother was left alone, her children having fled, she adopted an orphan who left for Germany as soon as she was able. So, my grandmother remained quite alone. For some time, she complained about how everybody left her, but then she accidentally met her first boyfriend of many years past, a man she believed to be dead. After some months, they married and thus caused a great scandal among near and distant relatives, friends and neighbors. My mother and I were among the few who visited and congratulated her in her new home. I quite frankly didn’t want to go because the old bat teased me whenever she could, often calling me a “wretch”. However, my mum convinced me to forget my hard feelings.
My mother's family lived in much poorer circumstances. My maternal grandparents had only about two hectares of land with a house and a cowshed. The buildings and most of the land were ten kilometers from Ljubljana, quite near the street that ran from Ljubljana all the way to Trieste in Italy. The house was built in the Slovenian rustic style with the roof covered with brown tiles and a white façade with pretty little windows. The old carved door, decorated with wrought iron, led to a hall with entrances to all the rooms in the house. Right behind the main door, you could enter a broad room with a tiled stove, old cabinet and a big table with chairs. The tiled stove was not heated during the winter months because my grandmother found it too expensive. The only exceptions were for Christmas and Easter, when my grandmother made cakes with carob powder and raisins. The main place where the family gathered was the kitchen, which was equipped with a cupboard, a kitchen-range and a table with chairs. The most beautiful part of the kitchen was a small copper kettle from which somebody could wash or quickly make a cup of coffee or tea. On the windows and the cupboard, there were embroidered curtains made by my grandmother. Beside the kitchen was another small room that was filled with beautiful old furniture. This became my grandfather’s room when he had to leave the bedroom he shared with my grandmother. The other half of the house contained two big rooms. My mother and my aunt slept in one of them and another was used for storage.
Right in front of the house were two plum trees. My mum made jam every year – so much that we sometimes had to throw it away. On the west side of the house there was a small orchard with old high apple trees that gave us enough apples to last us until the next autumn. The southern part of the house was covered with vines. Across the street there was a moor in which my grandparents produced the rest of their food: potatoes, carrots, parsley, turnips, cabbages, lettuce and corn. Though a small choice of products, even their use was limited because my grandmother had rather precise definitions of what could be eaten by people and what was meant for animals. It was quite clear that people should eat orange carrots while animals got the yellow ones. Corn was eaten only by pigs and hens and was not meant for people. Turnips could be eaten only if they were sour, and so on.
On the northern side of the house there was a stable overgrown with vines. The ground floor was used for one or two cows, two pigs and hens and the higher floor for hay. Behind the stable there was a forest that started with birch trees and continued with huge, dark pine trees.
I am still not sure which side of our house I liked more: the moor with its fog that covered the fields in the early spring and summer mornings or the forest in which I knew every tree.
My grandfather worked on his small farm and for the local railway. My grandmother sold milk and eggs and tried to earn some money through knitting, so that the family could have lived quite well. But my grandparents had neither the time nor the will to improve their standard of living. My grandfather used a lot of his time and money for drinking in the local pub and my grandmother was more eager to change her husband into a reliable and sensible one, than think of how to get some more money for her family. I still don’t understand how it came to such a situation. My grandmother was a hardworking, smart girl from a big farmhouse who knew how to cook, work in the field and take care of the animals. And I was always convinced that my grandfather was a good soul, one of the best I have ever met. He tried to do what my grandmother required, worked in the field, helped his children and his neighbors. His only fault was drinking. From time to time, he sat in the pub and drank whole days away and my grandmother raged like a dragon when he arrived home. Sometimes he remorsefully sat behind the table and then went to the field, but occasionally he just returned to the pub. In our house there was not much talk about love, but my grandfather often said that he loved us, especially if he’d had a glass of wine before.
My grandparents had two daughters: the first born was my aunt and, after two years, my mum. God was rather unjust when he divided His talents between both girls. In those times, when men liked big fat girls, my aunt was small, thin and wore glasses. When she was a baby, she was very ill, and thus started to walk later than other children and did not do well in school. The majority of their neighbors found her rather simple. However, if she learned that somebody spoke ill of her, she got revenge in full measure. She usually waited until she met the person in front of the church and then naively said that she heard one or another unpleasant thing on their account. When telling such a story, she produced a silly giggle and looked as if butter would not melt in her mouth. People suspiciously watched her and were never sure if she was simple or very smart. My grandmother took every effort to teach her how to please other people and how to work in the house and in the field. But when she had to weed the lettuce in the garden, she plucked out the lettuce along with the weeds. If she was told to hoe up potatoes, she hoed up turnip. She never learned how to milk a cow and she never wanted to touch hens, because she found them disgusting. She could not sew or knit because her sight was poor. She never learned how to cook. And she also never wanted to marry, although she had a good opportunity, as my mum told me. She was proposed to by a decent farmer who lived in a remote village. My aunt mostly enjoyed just sitting on a chair and chatting. Since my grandmother was sure that such a waste of time was a big sin and because my aunt’s speaking got on everybody’s nerves (not just because she never said anything important, but also because she had a harsh, unpleasant voice), my grandmother usually shortly ordered her to shut up.
My mum was her direct opposite. She had dark hair, blue eyes, a beautiful oval face, a pretty round figure. She was entertaining, lively, smart and flirtatious but also kind, hardworking and compassionate. As soon as she was about fifteen, she became one of the most popular girls in the parish. My grandmother wanted her to become a dressmaker, which was a profitable and respectable occupation, but she had to break up her schooling because of the Second World War. After the war, there was no money to continue school. My mum was never sorry about it, because the teachers required much more patience and precision than she possessed. But she bought a sewing machine and continued sewing to the best of her ability.
My mum was a great help to my grandmother. My grandmother had tuberculosis and could no longer work in the field. She was the first in the house to get up, she fed the cow and the pigs, prepared breakfast, made lunch and dinner, washed the dishes and knitted. But the most difficult work had to be done by my mum and my grandfather. If my grandfather did not drink, he was working his fingers to the bone, but those were rare weeks. My aunt was no special help and my mum preferred to work without her. Although my mum had a lot of work, she managed to do everything and did not miss any entertainment. My grandmother did not like parties, but my mum was always invited to help with cooking and serving during garden parties, weddings or a priest’s first Mass.
All the boys from the near and far-off villages were in love with her, partly because she was so beautiful and liked to laugh and partly because she could just look at a man and already manage to twist him around her little finger. My grandmother never understood this art and also never appreciated it, but she could not convince my mum that girls should modestly look down and not into boys’ eyes.
To prevent my mum from marrying too soon or choosing an unsuitable man, my grandmother asked her about all the boys who walked around the house and quickly discovered and described their faults.
Later in her life, my mum was sorry that she believed her mother and refused so many suitors. She sometimes showed me one or another wealthy man from the village and said: “Just take a look at what a big house and car he has. What a fool I was that I listened to my mother and stopped dating him, even though he was in love with me.”
My mum’s family was very lucky because they did not lose any family members during the war or in the post-war purges. During the war, the family had to give up half of their house as the headquarters of the Italian and later Partisan army, but they got the rooms back. Neither my grandparents nor my mum and my aunt ever said that the soldiers did them any harm. Quite the opposite, they often gave the girls something to eat and even sweets, if they had them.
When my mum suggested that she might like to find a job in Ljubljana, my grandmother sharply opposed. It would be a scandal if young girls in those corrupted communist times tried to find jobs outside their houses! My grandmother thought that decent women should stay at home, take care of their family, fields and animals in the stable and go to church. Young women should be modest and never expose themselves in any way. If my mum were employed in Ljubljana, she would certainly meet a number of “worthless fellows without estates,” without money and without serious intentions to marry. But the Yugoslav government did not work in favor of confirmed church mice like my grandmother.
Representatives of the village government simply came to the house and told my grandmother that two young, healthy and strong girls should not sit at home without employment. The girls should be employed, or the government would include them in the work brigades. Although young people who joined the work brigades helped to rebuild the broken country, my grandmother was convinced that the brigades were organized just to bring young men and women together. Work brigades were, according to the opinions of many old village women, places of absolute immorality, because young people sang and danced every evening, and some girls were so indecent that they wore trousers, some of them even shorts! So, my grandmother was forced to let her daughters find jobs in Ljubljana.
My mum could not have been happier. Her greatest wish was to come to the city among new people, earn some money and have a good time. She enjoyed her daily travel to Ljubljana, because she met always new young men and women of the same age, with whom she could discuss things quite different from those she shared with her embittered mother. It was pure happiness to get acquainted with the new city environment, where everything was well-organized and where a young woman could go to a cinema, to a park, a pub, to shops or simply walk along the river or admire the beautiful old houses. When my mum got her first salary, she went to a sweetshop and bought so many chocolate cakes that she had to vomit.
My grandmother quickly took action. She required that her daughters come home immediately after their jobs were finished and work in the field. My grandmother also expected that both her daughters would give her all the salary that they earned. The girls could keep just a bit of the money so that they could buy one or two pairs of shoes and material for a couple of dresses.
My mum first worked for the Yugoslav railways but, after a year or two, she gave them her notice. She had liked the work, but often had to work during the night and fell asleep. Her boss kindly said that she should find a morning or afternoon job. She then found employment in Iskra, a large factory for electric products, and remained there for almost twenty years.
My father worked for the Yugoslav railways, too, and that’s where he and my mum met. Quite a number of people said that they never understood why she fell in love with him. He was probably quite a handsome young man. But my mum said that he attracted her with his words. He didn’t hide his emotions and often remarked on his difficult childhood.
When my grandmother heard of my father, it was too late to convince my mum that she should leave him. My mum confessed that she was pregnant. My grandmother furiously boxed her ears and scolded her, but she agreed that the young couple should marry. They did not have a place to live together, so my grandparents gave them half of their house – two big rooms in which my mum and my father organized their kitchen and bedroom.
Not just my grandmother, but also other villagers refused to welcome my father. Why did my mum marry somebody who was not from the parish, but wandered in from who-knows-where? Many village boys had been members of the Home Guard that had opposed the Partisans and collaborated with the German or Italian army. After the war, they were shot by Partisans or emigrated, which led to many of the villagers hating them. And my father was the son of a rather well-known Partisan! No one could believe that the most beautiful girl in the parish would marry a Styrian with that kind of background. And besides, it was such a scandal that my mother got pregnant before the wedding! The priest did not want to marry them until my father went to Confession and took Communion. My father could have done that because he was brought up as a Catholic and his bosses would not control his going to church. It was just a question of power. The priest had his principles and my father had his. At the end of the conversation, my father shouted that he would marry somewhere else.
The wedding took place in Ljubljana and was very simple. When my parents returned from the town, there was a lunch at home and only family members were invited. My father’s relatives – his mother, both sisters and cousins – were quite different from those of my mother’s. My grandmother talked about, for several years, how unusually they spoke, how they laughed and hugged the new relatives and how they brought tasteless, strange sausages and cakes.
If my father had thought that the marriage would have brought him independence and the opportunity to become his own master, he was mistaken. His mother-in-law was a strong and sharp woman who was very conservative about what was right and what was wrong. And my father committed many faults in her eyes. He married my mum when she was already pregnant and was almost without money. Perhaps my grandmother could have forgotten about it, because my father really loved my mum and spoke about it all the time. And he could still become heir to his mother’s large estate in Styria, but he refused to go to church, so my grandmother considered him a sinner who would go to Hell when he died. My grandmother did not expect that men would go to church every Sunday, but her son-in-law categorically disapproved of all priests and did not want to visit the church, even for Christmas and Easter. The young man also did not want to work in the field. He was ready to help with the most difficult work, but it never entered his mind that he should quickly eat his lunch and then work in the field, like his wife and sister-in-law. My grandmother considered him very lazy and it made no impression on her when he maintained that he worked hard in the morning. She also did not appreciate when he started with smaller joiner’s work in the afternoon.
The Yugoslav government was against private businesses and everyone who established a firm was under strict control. But they did not care if people performed a trade if it was not registered. My father often claimed that he was able to do any joiner’s work and people started to ask him if he could make a table, a cabinet and the like. My grandfather gave him a place beside the stable and my father created a small joiner’s workshop. At first, he wanted to make modern kitchen furniture for my mum. He produced a big cupboard and painted it in white and blue – two colors that my mum hated – and she started to cry when she saw it. Similar things happened also with the neighbors. My father made wooden products according to his own knowledge and taste. If anybody argued that he had not ordered such a product, my father raised his voice, explained that he graduated from joinery school and that people should consider his professional opinion. Such discussions usually finished with a loud quarrel and the client left the product in the joinery, without paying. There were fewer and fewer orders. My father never admitted that this might have been his fault. No, the villagers were not worth of his efforts. As a result, he had quite a lot of time in the afternoon, so he decided to sign up to attend a school for professional drivers and then tried to get a driver’s job with a higher salary. He quickly finished school and became a driver for a general manager. It was a considerable promotion and he was very proud of it. He paraded his achievement to everybody who would listen.
After some months, people were fed up with the reports on his professional success and my mum had to tell him to stop boasting. What a horrible mistake! He burst into a rage, because she did not “appreciate” him, hit her face and then started to weep.
My mum took to her mother, but received no solace, as she stated: “I told you what he was like. You did not listen and now you have got him. Get divorced from this savage so that we will live in peace.”
But my mum still loved him and tried to save her marriage. When my father hit her the next time, she ran away and hid in one of the neighboring houses. I was small, but I still remember that I was quite desperate. My beautiful, adored mum, for whose smile I would wait from the morning until the afternoon, left me. My father said that she would never come back again, and I had no courage to ask questions or oppose or weep. But after some time, my father waited for her in front of her factory, promised that he would never hit her again and she returned home.
Although my father worked as a driver and often returned home in the evening (he had to drive his directors whenever, and for as long as, they wanted), there was no peace in our house. Quarrels broke out again and again. If my grandmother did not scold my grandfather or my aunt, there were more serious quarrels between my mum and my father. They did not just shout. My father very often hit my mum, threw dishes on the floor and almost every month broke the glass of the door. As a three-year old girl, I started to tremble with fear when my father raised his voice because I knew that he would not stop before he hit somebody or broke something. When he broke the glass door, he usually hurt his hand and it started to bleed. This made him feel sorry for himself. He would weep and, exhausted, slowly stop raging. But we were all so distant from him that nobody felt sorry for him. His relatives-in-law sneered, my mum said that it was his fault and I could not sympathize with him, either. Although I was only three years-old, I knew that it was him who always started the fights.
