Accident of Fate: A Personal Account, 1938–1945

15. Friendships and Hardships

7A 147 15 FRIENDSHIPS AND HARDSHIPS I had few close friends in the Partisans; the general atmosphere of suspicion and mistrust, compounded by anti-Semitic prejudice, forced me to be very cautious about fraternizing too closely with anyone. Several of the young Jewish men and women who had been interned with me in the Italian camps in Kraljevica and Rab had also joined the Partisans and remained my friends, but they were in other units and I rarely saw them. Apart from Vlado Horvatić, my best friend was a former Italian soldier by the name of Paolo. He was a dark, curly-haired Sicilian who had somehow made his way into the Partisans after the Italian debacle of 8 September 1943 (he is sitting next to me in the photograph at the top of page 133). He was not the only former Italian soldier in the Partisans; there were several others who had chosen to join rather than surrender With Eva Deutsch, a former fellow inmate in the Italian camps, who was stationed with another Partisan unit ▸ 81118 001-226.pdf_out 6/17/114:15 PM K 147 FI 148 15 FRIENDSHIPS AND HARDSHIPS to the Germans or attempt to return to war-torn Italy; there were also some Dutch and Belgians. I cannot remember Paolo’s last name—perhaps I never knew it—but I will never forget him. He had been posted at the animal hospital on the basis of his claim that he had cared for horses in his native Sicily and later in the Italian army. He was no better educated than the average local Partisan(i.e.,hewasilliterate)—butnoneoftheSlavicmelancholyandfolk pessimism for him! He had the Italian quickness of mind, joy of life, and sense of humour. I enjoyed listening to his stories about Sicily before the war, how he would drive his father’s orange-laden horse cart to market, singing arias from operas, in particular the cart driver’s song from Cavalleria Rusticana. It was very easy to imagine him doing so; he often sang loudly and melodiously as he went about his work at the animal hospital. Paolo conided to me that when he was fourteen, his parents had placed him in a Jesuit boarding school in preparation for the priesthood. All had gone smoothly until he discovered that a fundamental requirement for the priesthood was celibacy. Certain that this would be no life for him, he ran away. Although he knew only a few words of Serbo-Croatian, Paolo amused the entire unit with his singing, clowning, and practical jokes. I later lost touch with him and sincerely hope he made it safely back to Italy. In addition to the military threat from the Germans and Ustashe (and occasionally the Chetniks), and the “political” menace posed by Communist rule, there were the arduous and primitive living conditions to contend with. The hilly Kordun area where I was stationed had been very backward even in peacetime; in wartime, conditions became even harsher. For most of us, the main problems were very basic: inding food and shelter. But for those like Max Hamburger, a highly intelligent young man who had been an inmate with me in the Italian camps, the situation became desperate. A diabetic, he had somehow been able to obtain insulin (perhaps with the help of the Italians) while in the camps. Under the diicult and isolated conditions in the Partisans, this became impossible, and he died. The countryside around the animal hospital was devastated; with the front lines moving back and forth over the preceding months and years, artillery shells and bomber raids had wrought complete havoc. Many of the houses and buildings (most of them wooden) had been badly damaged if not destroyed, and the agricultural workforce as well as the 81118 001-226.pdf_out 6/17/114:15 PM K 148 7A 149 15 FRIENDSHIPS AND HARDSHIPS livestock had been decimated. As a result, food was very scarce. For the Partisans, a meal generally meant a bowl of beans or polenta, sometimes with bread. Although we were not far from the Adriatic coast, combat with the Germans and Ustashe often interrupted supply routes, which led to to a chronic shortage of salt. It did not bother me, personally, to eat unsalted beans or polenta, so it amazed me that some of the local villagers were willing to barter meat—which was extremely scarce—for salt, often on...