The Forgotten 500 (16 page)

It was hard to kiss Mirjana good-bye, but he knew it was
for the best and he had every intention of seeing her again. He just hoped the war wouldn’t keep them apart for too long. But when he returned to the coastal village, his dear Mirjana was waiting for him there. Vujnovich was shocked to see her and feared she had somehow missed her opportunity with the sailboat. Then Mirjana explained that she and Mirko had taken the boat as planned, sailing out to the open sea to meet the British cruiser. Once they got within sight of the ship that could take them to safety, Italian fighter planes appeared and attacked the ship. It was badly damaged and turned away, unable to take on Mirjana and the other refugees. The British citizens who had made it onboard on earlier trips by the sailboat, were arrested by the Italians and interned in Italy. The sailboat had no choice but to deposit Mirjana and her brother back in Herzeg Novi. Vujnovich was at once elated to see her again, relieved that she hadn’t made it to the cruiser any sooner, and disappointed that she was still trapped with him.

They had no immediate alternative, so they just waited in the little village again. As the day wore on, Vujnovich decided to talk with Mirjana about something that had been going through his mind on the long walk back from Risan. He took Mirjana on a walk in the monastery garden.

“We’ve been together about three or four years, and I love you, Mirjana,” he said. “We could get married right away. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” He paused for her reaction.

She was taken off guard by the comment, though she had been wondering about the same thing. “Yes, I suppose we could.”

“But . . . with the Italians in control of the sea here, there’s not going to be any more evacuation from here. We don’t know if we can find another way out.”

“Yes, I understand,” she said. “It would be easier for you by yourself.”

George knew what she was getting to, but he wasn’t eager to discuss that possibility. He wanted to be pragmatic, but he couldn’t bear the thought of just walking away from Mirjana. Instead he tried to back into the topic of splitting up.

“Well . . . if we get married, don’t expect me to be faithful for five or ten or fifteen years. I wouldn’t last that long,” he said, unable to look her in the eye as he spoke. “I may find someone else. You may find someone else. Who knows? It’s human nature.”

In truth, it wasn’t the fidelity that worried him. He just couldn’t stand the idea of being without Mirjana again. It was easier to talk practically about what the future might bring rather than tell her how deeply it would hurt him to lose her again, less painful to feign a lack of confidence in his fidelity than to admit that he would be heartbroken.

Vujnovich was troubled by what he was suggesting. Mirjana understood, and she spared him the pain of having to say it himself.

“Yes, well, you can get out, George. Maybe that’s for the best,” she said, her voice stronger than she felt inside. “I’ll find a way and then we can be together again.”

Vujnovich was disturbed to even be discussing this. He didn’t want to leave Mirjana behind. But the situation was dire. This wasn’t a time for blind romance.

Mirjana felt the same way. She didn’t want to be separated from George, but she didn’t want him to stay in danger when he was free to leave. She didn’t say anything for a long moment and George spoke again.

“Without a passport, you’ll never get out through any regular route. I’d have to leave without you and come back sometime, whenever I could.” The unspoken follow-up was “And hope you’re still alive.” They both knew what could happen if Mirjana stayed behind. She was scared but couldn’t bear to ask him to stay with her. He couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her.

They held each other for a long time, neither one wanting to say what had to be said, but both knowing. Finally George spoke up and said it out loud.

“I’m going to have to leave, Mirjana,” he said. “I’ll come back for you sometime in the future. You know I will.”

“Yes, I know you will,” she said. She couldn’t help crying even though she was trying hard to be strong.

“As soon as I can, Mirjana. I promise. After the war, we’ll be together again.”

 

 

 

Vujnovich knew that Herzeg Novi
no longer offered any possibility of escape, so he agreed with other Americans in the village, including several reporters, that it was time to move on. After a difficult and tearful farewell with Mirjana, he piled into a car and joined about fifty Americans in a caravan headed to Dubrovnik, then on to Sarajevo. They had to get out of the country while their American passports still meant something in Yugoslavia. No one knew how long that might be.

It was late evening when the Americans reached Sarajevo, located in a valley in eastern Yugoslavia, surrounded by the Dinaric Alps and situated around the Miljacka River, and the group split up to find places to stay. Vujnovich went to a small hotel and asked the desk clerk if a room was available, and much to his surprise, the answer was yes. Noting Vujnovich’s American accent, the clerk asked for his passport. Vujnovich reached into his coat pocket and fumbled for the all-important document. It wasn’t there. He couldn’t believe it.

“I . . . uh . . . it’s not here,” he stammered, bewildered as to how he could have lost it.

An armed guard sitting near the clerk’s desk suddenly became interested. The man was one of the Ustashe, the rebels who had taken control of Croatia and Bosnia under the German occupation. They were known for being cruel and unpredictable, sort of like auxiliary versions of the Nazis themselves. The guard stood up and looked sternly at Vujnovich, who was still fumbling in his pockets, frantically looking for the document.

“Show me your passport!” the guard yelled. Vujnovich explained again that he had one but couldn’t find it at the moment. He was growing more and more distressed as each pocket came up empty.

“Maybe he is a spy,” the Ustashe said to the clerk. “Spies can be shot. It’s better than arresting them.”

Vujnovich didn’t know what to do, so he kept looking through the pockets he already knew were empty. At the mention of shooting him, several other Americans spoke up and tried to vouch for Vujnovich, waving their own American passports and insisting that he was just another American trying to get home. Among those trying to defend Vujnovich were a U.S. consul official and Ray Brock, a reporter for the
New York Times
. They were arguing vociferously with the Ustashe guard, and he withered under the American onslaught. After a moment he relented and agreed to let Vujnovich stay in the hotel that night.

“You can find your passport,” he said to Vujnovich. “But if you do not have it tomorrow, you will be arrested.”

Vujnovich was only partly relieved. He still had no idea where his passport was and he knew the Ustashe would not be deterred the next morning. He spent a frantic night searching through his belongings and trying to think back to where he had seen the passport last. He slept hardly at all as he pondered what would happen in the morning. He thought about trying to run off during the night, but he was sure the Ustashe guard or his cohorts would spot him. That would guarantee a bad outcome.

And then at six thirty a.m. there was a knock on the door. Vujnovich jumped at the sound and his heart went to his throat.
It must be the Ustashe coming for my passport,
he thought.
He was annoyed by last night’s confrontation and wants to arrest me right away.
Vujnovich slowly went to the door and opened it, surprised to see the chauffeur of the car he had ridden in standing there. Apparently the man had no idea what trouble Vujnovich was in and was simply running an errand.

“You dropped this in the car,” he said, and handed the critical passport to Vujnovich. He turned around and left, with no idea that he had just saved the American’s life. Vujnovich realized that he must have missed his inside breast pocket when he tried to put his passport away in the car. The document had lain in the car all night long. Vujnovich wasted no time in showing the passport to the Ustashe and soon the Americans continued on their trip, driving on to Belgrade. They had no firm plans for how to get out of Yugoslavia, but they all thought their chances better in the big city, where they had contacts and more resources than in the countryside. They found a city completely unlike the one they had left. The city was beaten and bowed, the occupying Germans tightening the noose every day. There was a six-p.m.-to-six-a.m. curfew, after which anyone on the street would be shot without warning. Any resistance was met with exaggerated retribution: The death of one German soldier would result in one hundred Serbs being hanged in public. One day Vujnovich was walking down the street when he saw a crowd running toward him. They yelled at him to turn and run away, which he did without question. When he got the chance, he asked one of those fleeing what was wrong.

“There was a small fire at a gas station,” the man answered. “The Germans assumed it was sabotage and started killing people. They took the first ten people they saw off the street and shot them.”

Despite the danger in Belgrade, the gamble paid off. Not long after arriving, Vujnovich ran into his American friend Vasa Purlia, who told him that not only was it still possible for the Americans to get out, but they could take their wives as well. He was planning to marry his girl-friend, Koka, a local girl like Mirjana, and get her out with him. “Have you married Mirjana?” he asked eagerly. “Where is she? The American consulate can give you all the necessary documents for her to enter the United States,” Purlia explained, “but only if you are married.”

“But what about her passport? Will they give her an American passport?”

“No, they can’t do that. But they can give all the papers to show that she is your wife and entitled to leave with you.”

“Will the Germans and Italians accept that?”

“I don’t know, George. But it is the only hope for Mirjana and Koka to leave.”

To make matters worse, George found out that the Gestapo were looking for any Yugoslavian citizens with connections to Americans or British organizations, on the theory that they might be spies or at least disloyal. Mirjana was on the list, not only because of her relationship with George but because she had received a scholarship from the British Council and studied English.

That meant Mirjana was in extreme danger if she stayed, probably more than any risk involved with trying to get her out of the country. Vujnovich knew he had to try to get Mirjana out with him. If only he had known this before leaving her in Herzeg Novi. They could still be together and so much closer to leaving. Now he had to spend more time reuniting, and every passing day made their task more difficult. Vujnovich raced to the nearest telegraph office and sent a message to Mirjana in the coastal village. The telegraph operator warned him that the message probably would not go through because the war had disrupted all means of communication, but he tried it anyway. Vujnovich paid a small sum and the operator sat down at his desk, tapping out a simple message to Herzeg Novi.

As luck would have it, Mirjana was staying in the home of the village’s telegraph operator, who was surprised to hear the system clicking out a message. He rushed to receive it and soon he came out of the room with a message in his hand, calling for Mirjana Lazic. He handed her a small slip of paper that instantly raised her spirits.

While she was thrilled to hear from George, she was not entirely sure she wanted to go back to Belgrade. She had convinced herself that the war would be concentrated in the big cities, and she had seen the devastation already wrought on Belgrade. Maybe if she stayed in the countryside she would be okay, she thought. And did she really want to leave Yugoslavia, even if she could?

Her brother, Mirko, an engineer who spoke English, convinced her to think clearly. The two of them set off by train for Belgrade, itself a dangerous journey as the Ustashe monitored all activity in the region now, looking for any opportunity to harass someone without the right papers. George thought Mirjana was on her way to Belgrade, but he didn’t know when she might arrive. Realizing that the Germans might go to her Belgrade home looking for her—or a neighbor might report her arrival—he didn’t want Mirjana to get off the train and go there. But if the train arrived after the six p.m. curfew, she would have to stay on the train all night and then get off at six a.m. So every day, George sprinted out of the house at six a.m. and down to the train station, hoping to catch Mirjana before she could walk into danger. She might get off the train at the same moment George was able to step outside, so every morning he was in a mad race to catch up with her. This went on for five days until he returned to his hotel and found Mirjana waiting there with Mirko.

After a tearful embrace, George asked how she had known to go to the hotel instead of going home. Mirjana told him that she and Mirko had, in fact, tried to return home that morning. When they approached the house, the family’s maid rushed out and yelled at them to go away. Her frantic tone explained why. Mirjana knew that George had friends staying at the hotel, so she hoped to find him there also.

As soon as they were reunited, George took Mirjana to the American consulate and spoke with the consul, an earnest administrator who was working feverishly to get Americans and their loved ones out before it was too late. He had already given the proper documents to Vasa and Koka, who had been married earlier that day. He told George and Mirjana that they must hurry. But there was one important issue, he said. The Germans have forbidden any foreigners to marry.

“You have to go to this church at six o’clock in the morning,” he said, handing George a paper with the location of the church. “Don’t tell anyone except two witnesses. You have to bring two witnesses and the priest will marry you.”