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7A 83 7 SPLIT Uncle Robert had rented two rooms for us in an old mansion on the Marijan Hill, overlooking the town of Split. During peacetime the beautiful Dalmatian coast had been a favourite destination for holiday makers from central and southern Europe; now, under Italian military occupation and with tourism at a standstill, plenty of rental accommodation was available. Our landlord was a frail, sickly old man, who lived with his much younger wife and two pretty daughters. They were part of a well-established local family impoverished by the war, and they rented two rooms to us while continuing to live in the rest of their large home. Although they were well educated and had once been quite wealthy, they were in many respects typical inhabitants of the Dalmatian coast: ethnic Croats and devout Catholics, with strong ties to Italian culture. The region of Dalmatia had for centuries been closely linked to Italy, in particular to the Venetian Republic, and Split prided itself in being the birthplace of Diocletian, one of the great Roman emperors. I was struck by the attachment of our landlords to Italian culture, which they considered richer and more sophisticated than their own; they read mostly Italian literature and sometimes spoke Italian among themselves. Yet like many Dalmatians, they faced a moral dilemma: as Croats, they were strongly against the forced imposition of Italian rule (the Fascists had annexed Split to Italy and renamed it Spalato) and kept their contacts with the Italian occupiers to a bare minimum; at the same time, they disagreed with the extremist policies of the barbarous Ustashe regime that claimed to represent them. As we grew to know one another, a deep bond of mutual respect and understanding developed between our two families. They empathized with the hardships we had gone through and with 81118 001-226.pdf_out 6/17/114:15 PM K 83 FI 84 7 SPLIT our anxieties for the future; we appreciated the way they navigated the treacherous waters into which the war had thrown them, doing their best not to endanger their present and future while seeking to live at peace with their consciences. I, naturally, was particularly interested in the sisters. The elder of the twowasinherearlytwenties,afewyearsolderthanI.Shewasastrikingly beautiful young woman with a iery and independent temperament. She dreamed of becoming an opera singer, a profession for which she unquestionably possessed all the required attributes but one—a good voice. This did not deter her. She practised with discipline and determination, belting out scales and exercises at all hours of the day and night (unfortunately, particularly at night). We sometimes found it grating and exasperating but had to take it in good spirits; after all, we were in Split illegally and did not want to attract undue attention by changing lodgings. I became good friends with the younger daughter, Carmen, who was seventeen and a half. I was enthusiastic at this opportunity to inally strike up a friendship with a girl of my age, particularly since Carmen was pretty, intelligent, charming, and lovely in every respect. She was already engaged to a budding local poet some ten years her senior, but despite this fact—or perhaps because of it (he was a little too old and serious for her)—our friendship blossomed. We would spend hours leaning against the fence in front of her house, talking about every imaginable subject and simply delighting in each other’s company. Our relationship remained platonic, and her iancé and parents never voiced any objections to it. That summer friendship with Carmen was as sincere and rewarding a relationship as I have ever known. After the horrors we had experienced under Ustashe rule, life in Split was paradise. Although I was a little apprehensive at irst—Fascist Italy was after all the main ally of Nazi Germany—I soon realized, to my amazement, that the Italian occupation troops represented no threat to us. There were no anti-Semitic restrictions, including no obligation to wear the yellow star, and the Italians seemed to make no efort to track down and identify illegal refugees. Most important, they prevented local members of the Ustashe from harassing anyone, Jew or Serb. Still, there was considerable tension in the air. The attitude of our landlords was shared by most of the local people, who resented and were hostile to the Fascist occupation and annexation. Although only a 81118 001-226.pdf_out 6/17/114:15 PM K 84 [3.136.26...

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