The Arab and the Brit: The Last of the Welcome Immigrants

19 The Yugoslav Rezaks

213 19 The Yugoslav Rezaks Nick and his UNRRA colleagues continued their efforts to rebuild the war-torn societies of Europe. This task became much easier after the war was over. By early 1946, plans had been laid and work was in progress toward returning the ravaged nations to prosperity. On April 15, 1946, Nick made a shortwave radio broadcast to report on UNRRA progress since its entry into Yugoslavia approximately eighteen months earlier. He pointed out that when he and his colleagues had landed in Split, the Nazis still occupied most of the country. By the time the war ended in May 1945, the extent of the devastation was obvious. Hundreds of villages and towns were destroyed. Farms were demolished , livestock killed or driven off. Railroads were disrupted or bombed; roads and bridges were blown up; and telephone and telegraph communication was a thing of the past. A large portion of the population was starving and desperately short of clothing. Industry and manufacturing capability had been decimated. The government was struggling because most records and systems had been destroyed. Against this backdrop, Nick outlined in his broadcast the story of the village of Nevesinje, Herzegovina. It is a half-destroyed village on the western side of a wide bowl of rich ploughland in the very heart of the barren rocky mountains of Hercegovina [sic]. When I first saw the village last March there was deep snow on either side of the road that had been cleared to supply the [Allied] army moving forward in their advance on Sarajevo, which was still in German hands. The road was littered with German equipment and trucks. Down in the wide valley beneath the circle of white peaks, the snow had melted and the river was full—a lovely river that leaps down 214 | The Arab and the Brit through narrow gorges to spread out in the valley and then disappear suddenly underground like so many rivers here in this curious Karst country. I was told that in summer the river is usually dry so that there was no water to turn the wheels of the water mills set along its banks. Then the people had to walk 40 kilometers over the mountain passes to mill their grain which they carried on the backs of horses and mules. In the meantime, they were living on UNRRA imported flour and grain—very little, five or six pounds per person per month, but enough to keep them alive until harvest. In June, July and August came the drought, the worst in 90 years. The entire crop was ruined. Since the river was dry, the UNRRA grain had to be milled in Mostar before it came over the mountains in trucks to the village. The whole length and breadth of Hercegovina was dried up. Yet the people were still anxious about their mill so that next year would see them self-sufficient with their own grain and their own mill. They wanted seed immediately for the autumn sowing. Just a few weeks ago, the villagers of Nevesinje had their fields plowed by oxen for spring planting. A new mill arrived from UNRRA so they would no longer need to transport their grain to Mostar for milling. We are confident that UNRRA supplies are being distributed equitably. I want to say to the people of America and the contributing UNRRA nations that your supplies have been put to excellent use. They have saved millions of people from cold and starvation. They have given new hope and new life to the war-weary but energetic people of Yugoslavia. Polly and I left Rome, New York, on May 9, 1946, and traveled by rail to New York City. We spent two days touring New York and then embarked from Jersey City, New Jersey, on May 11 on the Italian ocean liner Vulcania . The ship had been built by Cantiere Navale Triestino in Montfalcone, Italy, and set sail in 1928. It weighed almost twenty-four thousand tons. The Vulcania sailed successfully until the 1960s, when it caught fire and burned in Hong Kong Harbor. During the war years, the Vulcania had been converted to troop-style accommodations. The passage for the two of us cost $345. We sailed with two other UNRRA wives and their children—three mothers and four children. All The Yugoslav Rezaks | 215 seven of us were assigned to a small fifteen-by-fifteen-foot...