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DRAFT 14.november 2007

 

Anton Žakelj’s Refugee Camp Diary – Commentary and Summary

 

by John Žakelj

 

In 1949, when I was less than a year old, my father carried me in his arms on frequent walks in the pine woods near the refugee camp in Trofaiach, Austria.  Fifty-seven years later, when he was 98, I pushed his wheelchair on walks around the nursing home near Cleveland, USA.  He loved walks and so do I.  We took many walks together during those 57 years.  Those walks were one of the ways that I came to know my father well.  Another was by working with him on publication of his diaries during the last 14 years of his life.  He kept a diary (not always daily) from the time he was 18 almost until he died.  In it, I found a wealth of experience, insight and strength of character. 

 

In 1992, my father received a letter from Miha Naglič, the editor of Žirovski občasnik, an impressive journal published annually in Žiri, Slovenia.  Žiri is a small town nestled in the beautiful green foothills of the Julian Alps.  Even in 1992, my parents still referred to Žiri as their home.  The letter from Mr. Naglič asked my father to write about his wartime experiences.  Until then, nobody in Slovenia had asked my father for his side of the story.  In fact, for almost half a century after the end of World War II, the communist government suppressed any versions of history other than its own.  In Slovenia, fear of reprisal was so great that parents could not tell their own children what really happened during and after the war.  My father was honored by the request, but suspicious.  Would his writing be altered and subverted?  He talked with his brothers and friends in Slovenia.  They assured him that times had changed.  So he agreed to provide excerpts and commentary from a 4-month period of his diary in 1943.  But by this time (1992), his eyesight was failing and he needed help with the typing.  I had just become familiar with computers and word processing, and I agreed to be his typist.

 

A year later, my father’s article appeared in the Žirovski občasnik, with a fascinating introduction by Mr. Naglič.   In it, Mr. Naglič talked about how long the Slovenian people had been told what to think, even what to celebrate.  He talked about how Slovenians longed for freedom, and he quoted a passage from the Bible:  “The truth shall set you free.”  He pointed to my father’s clear, direct and honest account of his side of the story.   Slovenians were beginning to realize that they could never be truly free as long as they lived in a lie.  They needed memories like my father’s to know the truth about themselves and their country.  My father appreciated the introduction and was especially pleased that his article was published word for word as he had submitted it, without censorship or editing.  Mr. Naglič’s request was indeed an honest search for the truth.

 

I now began to realize the significance of my father’s diaries.  If they were that important in Slovenia, maybe they would be worth translating into English and publishing here in America.  So I translated that 4 month section of his diary and submitted that to Jim Debevec, the editor of the Ameriška Domovina (American Home), a Slovenian-American weekly paper in Cleveland.  The Domovina  began publishing an excerpt every week.  The feature was very well received, so I continued to work with my father to assemble and translate additional sections.  He helped me identify numerous photos from his collection and we were able to tie many of the photos to specific diary entries.  We continued that work until his death in 2006.  By that time, the Domovina had published about 20 years of my father’s life.  It was a huge accomplishment, and we were both very proud of it.

 

Back in Slovenia in 1993, my father’s article generated debate and continued interest.  Mr. Naglič requested additional articles, and a new section of my father’s diary was published in Slovenian almost every year until he died.  The most sensitive section was published as a memorial soon after he died.  This was the section relating to May – June 1945, including my father’s description of the forcible postwar return and massacre in Slovenia of 11,000 Domobranci, many of them my father’s friends.

 

To understand my father’s diary, you need to understand the true situation in Slovenia during and after World War II.  Until recently, it was difficult to find a good, comprehensive source of information on this subject.  I strongly recommend the book Slovenia 1945 by John Corsellis and Marcus Ferrar (published in English in 2005 and in Slovenian in 2006).  Even after I had spent 14 years working with my father on his diaries, this book provided me with a deeper understanding of the impossible choices that people had and the unbelievable events that occurred.  At that time, there were at least three belligerent forces within Slovenia:

 

1)      The German Nazis and Italian Fascists, who invaded and occupied the country in 1941;  their goal was to stay in power and they were willing to kill or exile anyone who stood in their way.

2)      The communists, controlled from Moscow, whose primary goal was to ensure that they, and only they, remained in power when the war would come to an end;  to achieve this goal, the communists directed an army of guerrillas called the Partisans. The Partisans convinced many Slovenians and the British-American Allies that they were fighting to liberate Slovenia from the Nazis, when in fact they were paving the way for a postwar communist dictatorship. According to my father, the Partisans were even more willing than the Germans to kill any Slovenian who stood in their way.

3)      The non-communists, who were Catholics and firmly opposed to communist ideology.  In response to Partisan killing and pillage, the non-communists formed the Domobranci (or “home guard”) to defend their homes, their families and their churches.

 

Each of these forces made and broke alliances to suit their purposes.  Initially, the communists (and the Soviet Union) were allied with Germany and Italy.  But then Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and the communists became allied with the British and Americans.

 

For the average Slovenian, neutrality was not an option.  Whatever your choice, there were drastic consequences not only for yourself, but also your family, relatives, and friends. The Germans exiled non-cooperating families to Serbia, and sometimes to concentration camps in Austria and Germany.  For every German that was killed, the Germans rounded up and killed 10 Slovenians.   The Partisans resorted to even more brutal tactics.  If someone refused to cooperate with the Partisans, their home might be burned, or their family members killed, including women and children.  Even after the war, the Partisans continued their reprisals.

 

My parents knew that the German occupation of Slovenia was part of a much larger world war, and they believed (correctly, as it turned out) that the outcome of that war would be determined by much larger forces outside of Slovenia.  My father was saddened when he first saw a group of Domobranci marching together with German soldiers.  But he accepted that this might be the only way a small group could fight the communists which he viewed as the greater evil.

 

My parents leaned toward the Domobranci, but managed to stay out of the direct fighting, partly because they were already in their 30’s at the time.  My parents and most other Slovenians just wanted to be good members of their communities and their churches, without violence.  But the impossible situation forced everyone to make difficult choices.  One indication of this difficulty is that many people joined the Partisans at first and later switched to the Domobranci after they saw what the Partisans really stood for. 

 

Before the war, my father was a manager for a shoemakers’ and a dairy cooperative in Žiri, Slovenia.  He was a leader and respected member of his community.  When the Germans and Italians occupied Žiri in 1941, they allowed most of the existing farms and businesses (mostly small cooperatives) to continue.  In 1943, the Germans abandoned Žiri to the Partisans and took with them the cooperatives’ equipment.  As they were retreating from the town, they took my father and nine other leading men as hostages.  They announced that they would kill the hostages if anyone tried to attack their convoy.   Attacks on the Germans were not unusual at the time, but luckily there were none that day and the Germans let their hostages go free.

 

A month later, my father was forced to join the Partisans at gunpoint but escaped.  He walked a number of miles through the woods to the relative safety of an area that was still occupied by the Germans.  There, he became the assistant manager of a new shoemakers’ cooperative formed by refugees from Žiri.  In 1944, my mother escaped from the Partisans after a similar forcible conscription, and went to work for the same refugee cooperative.  The Partisans considered my parents’ escape from Partisan military service as desertion, and they considered their work (especially my father’s management role) in the new cooperative under German occupation as collaboration. If my parents returned to Partisan-controlled territory, my mother would probably be sent to prison and my father would probably be executed.

 

“Collaboration” is a word that is full of negative connotations and implies active cooperation with an evil occupier.  My parents never viewed their work in the shoemakers’ cooperative as collaboration.  Every Slovenian of that day and age had always lived under an “occupation” of one sort or another.  Prior to the end of World War I, Slovenia had been part of the Austrian Empire for centuries. Both of my grandfathers served on the Austrian side in World War I. (My maternal grandfather left his home for the war in 1914, about 3 months before my mother was born; he died at the Isonzo Front without ever having seen his infant daughter).  At that time, many Slovenians considered themselves faithful citizens of Austria. 

 

Yugoslavia was formed in 1918 with Slovenia as one of its republics; but Slovenians soon realized that they were still second-class citizens, this time under the heel of the Serbian monarchy. When the Italians and the Germans occupied Slovenian lands in 1941,  average Slovenians did not view a job in their occupied country as collaboration.

 

However you describe what my parents did, they did what they believed was best for their country and their faith.  But the Partisans viewed them as criminals.  Many years later, my father obtained a Partisan record of people slated for execution.  His name was on the list.  They couldn’t reach him, so they took his parents’ home and sent them and his sisters into exile.  At that time, his mother was seriously ill and the journey to homelessness in non-Partisan territory was particularly hard on her. 

 

What follows is a summary of my father’s diary for the period 1945 – 1949.  For each year from 1945 – 1949, his diary consisted of a small notebook, each one about 60 pages, 4 by 6 inches, full of notes in small handwriting, in pencil.  My father’s original diary entries were written in Esperanto, partly because he liked the language, but also to protect the information.  He was worried about reprisals if the diaries should fall into the wrong hands.  His diary was so important to him that it was the only thing he took with him when he escaped from the Partisans in 1943.  (Of course, that was the 1943 diary;  later he retrieved earlier years from his family, who had stored them in a safe place.)

 

During his retirement, my father translated about 30 years of his diary, basically 1938 - 1974, from Esperanto into Slovenian and added additional information based on his own memories and conversations with others who had lived through the same experiences.  With the help of his original notes, he had a near photographic memory for details.  When I translated his Slovenian into English in the 1990s, some parts were not clear to me and I was fortunate to be able to ask him many questions.  I included  his answers as additional clarifying material in the translation. 

 

After my father died, we gave his Slovenian originals to the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland, USA.  I still have his Esperanto originals, including a number of years that he never translated into Slovenian.  Before he died, he taught me some Esperanto.  I hope to some day translate those remaining years.   But now, I invite you to come for a walk with my father, to experience life as he did. 

 

Flight to the Unknown

Summary of Anton Žakelj’s Refugee Camp Diary and Memoirs

 

On May 4, 1945, church bells rang in Slovenia and all over Europe.  After five terrible years, World War II was coming to an end.  However, for Anton Žakelj and thousands of others, the worst effects of World War II were just beginning.  A communist dictatorship took control of Slovenia and the rest of Yugoslavia.  Anton and his fiancee Cilka knew that they would be imprisoned or executed if they stayed.  They said farewell to their families, not knowing where they would live or whether they would ever return.

 

Anton and Cilka stuffed some clothes into a suitcase and a briefcase, put food into a mesh bag and hung it all on his bike.  At 11 a.m. on May 7, 1945, they joined a river of refugees. The bike was too loaded to ride on it, so they walked alongside it, with Anton pushing from behind and Cilka steering the front.  About 10 of their co-workers and friends decided to go with them.  They left what some people were calling the beginning of freedom for Slovenia -  the promised workers’ paradise - and headed for the unknown.

 

They headed north to Austria, to an area that was controlled by the British and hopefully safe from the communists.  Their starting point, Kranj, was 17 miles from the border.  The walk to the border was not that difficult for Anton; thousands of others started much further away and had the added burdens of caring for small children and elderly parents. 

 

Just before night fell, they reached the Ljubelj pass and tunnel.  The terrain between Slovenia and Austria is mountainous and very difficult to cross.  There was a very large crowd of people waiting to go through the tunnel, but the retreating German Army was using the tunnel themselves and preventing civilians from entering.  Cilka and Anton decided to stay in a nearby barracks that had been used by workers who were building the tunnel. 

 

For the next two days, confusion and desperation reigned at the entrance to the tunnel. There were reports of refugees being attacked by Partisans along the road in Slovenia.  At least a couple people committed suicide.  Then somebody shot the German officer who was preventing civilians from using the tunnel and people began moving through.  In the tunnel, they found total darkness and mud that was knee-deep.  A few miles past the other side, they were blocked by Partisans who forced them back into Slovenia.  A group of Domobranci went ahead, fought a fierce battle with the Partisans and opened the way for the refugees.  Meanwhile, Anton and his group stayed in the barracks near the tunnel entrance.  Cilka’s brother-in-law Mire joined them, along with about 8 other people from Žiri.  Mire seemed to actually like the danger and adventure.

 

When Cilka went to the washroom near the barracks, she took off her wristwatch and set it to the side of the wash basin.  She didn’t remember it until later, but by then it was already gone.  “I will really miss my watch,” she said to Anton, “but the important thing is that I have you!”  Cilka and Anton had grown up not far from each other in Žiri.  In 1939, they decided to get married.  They looked forward to serving their community and raising a family in Žiri, just as their ancestors had done for hundreds of years before.  But the war changed all their plans.  They delayed their marriage plans, waiting for better times. 

 

Around 8 p.m. on May 11, 1945, many-colored rockets began to fly over the barracks from all directions.  Soon the first barracks caught fire, and then the others (there were about 40 barracks in all).  At the tunnel, there was still a large mass of people.  Anton and his group decided to take the steep road across the mountain pass.  At first, the light from the burning barracks helped them see where they were going, but it soon became completely dark. They groped about and somehow managed to stay on the narrow mountain road.  It was after midnight when they reached the other side of the pass.  At the first house, they found a stable, but the floor was covered with manure.  They took down a large barn door and slept on the door.

 

The next day,  they were awakened by a beautiful clear sky. They hung the door back on the barn and went onward, downhill from the mountain pass towards the valley below.  As they continued on, the road was often blocked by overturned vehicles.  When they reached the valley at noon, they saw many signs of the recent battle between the Partisans and the Domobranci.  A dead Partisan lay here, another there.  In the meadows were dead horses with distended bellies.  After they crossed the Drava River, the road again began a steep uphill climb.  Anton became so weary that he fell down in the shade of a bush next to the road.  Cilka brought him some water into which she had mixed some sugar.  That helped him regain his energy and they resumed their journey.

 

At the top of the hill, they met a British soldier.  Whenever he saw people walk by with weapons, he motioned to them to throw their weapons into the ditch at the side of the road.  In the ditch was a large pile of weapons, binoculars, telephones and other equipment.  A Domobranec came by and started looking through the pile, but the British soldier just waved his stick (that was his only weapon) and the Domobranec disappeared.  Germans, Russians, Serbs, Greeks and Domobranci all had to give up their weapons, but the Partisans were allowed to keep theirs. 

 

Just before midnight Anton and his group arrived at a meadow next to the small village of Vetrinje (“Viktring” in German).  There were already so many people, there was no room to lie down.  Everywhere people were sleeping as if they were dead.  They continued on and found some tall grass where they spread out blankets and lay down, exhausted. 

 

In the following days, Anton’s group grew to 33 people.  The men and boys made three tents out of branches.  There were 7 people in Anton’s “tent”: Cilka, her brother Rupert, her brother-in-law Mire, their friends Vinko Kržišnik, Franc and Pavel Kokelj, and Anton.  Anton’s group soon realized that the 3 “tents” they had made out of branches and oiled paper were very inadequate.  Rain soaked through the paper so they began to feel not only drops but liters of water pouring down on them.   The men went into the woods where they stripped all the bark off some large pine trees and used the bark to cover their “tents”.

 

The refugees soon ran out of the food they had brought with them.  They began slaughtering the horses that had been left by the retreating German army.  They also received some tent material which the Germans left behind.  The Domobranci cut enough empty gasoline barrels in half so each group could use one as a kettle for cooking.  For the next six weeks they cooked horsemeat in those barrels, until they could no longer stand the smell.

 

Some of the refugees, including Cilka, became sick with dysentery, a disease that usually involves severe diarrhea and abdominal cramps and is caused by unsanitary food or water.  At first, drinking water came from the same stream where the refugees washed themselves.  The British tried to treat the drinking water with chlorine, but it was not enough for the thousands of people in the camp.  The camp included about 70,000 people, of which about 17,000 were Slovenians, and of those about 11,000 were Domobranci who had fought against the Partisans during the war.[1]

 

Since Anton was the only person in the group who had some management experience and since the rest of the group knew even less German than he did, he became become the group's leader and took care of all the many requests from the authorities for information about each member of the group.

 

On May 26, 1945, the British moved out a first group of Domobranci, telling them that they were going to Italy, where they would receive new uniforms, weapons and equipment.  The Domobranci marched from the camp, singing enthusiastically.  Two days later, there were rumors in the camp that the British were not taking the Domobranci to Italy, but instead to Slovenia, where they were delivering them to the Yugoslav Partisans.  A Domobranec escaped, returned to the camp, and told everyone what was happening.  But the leadership of the Domobranci scolded him and accused him of spreading lies and confusion.

 

The next day, additional reports spread like lightning that the British had taken the Domobranci to Yugoslavia, the Partisans had killed 80% of them and the civilian refugees would soon have to face the same fate.  The entire camp was in shock.

 

Dr. V. Meršol then talked with Majors Barre and Johnson, who talked with the commander and reached agreement that anyone who wanted to return home could go, and anyone who wanted to stay, could stay.  Of course, the remaining refugees were relieved, but what about the 11,000 Domobranci who were sent back to Yugoslavia?

 

On Friday, June 1, 1945, Dr. Edvard Vračko spoke to the remaining Slovenian refugees.   With tears in his eyes, he told them that the Domobranci were betrayed.  One or two of his own sons were included in the group that the British sent back to Yugoslavia.  He cried when he reported that the men had been tortured.

 

30 years later, Anton wrote his own thoughts about this horrible event:

 

How could this have happened?  Why didn’t the Domobranci disperse and not allow themselves to be sent back to the Partisans?  Why did they still trust the British after the British  forced them to give up their weapons?  Why did they continue their military drills and continue to prepare for another battle with the Partisans?  I think the only explanation must be that the Domobranci had, after many victories over the Partisans, become so self-assured and so confident of ultimate victory, that they would have beaten up their own leaders if they had been told to disband.  They thought they would be safe from Partisan attack only if they stayed together.

 

As the Domobranci were being led away, I was tempted to go with them.  I was always on their side during the war.  I could not support the Partisans because I could see that they cared more about controlling their brothers than fighting the Germans.  The Partisans were willing to commit any atrocities just to come into power.  But I didn’t join the Domobranci because I had work (managing the dairy and the shoemakers’ cooperative) where I thought I could do more good. 

 

On June 13, 1945, Anton and Cilka celebrated his 38th birthday.  They ate the last two cans of sardines that they had brought from Kranj.  Anton noted in his diary that they didn’t need anything to drink because the rain poured through their roof all day.

 

On June 25, the refugees at Vetrinje were told that the camp must be evacuated in a few days.  Some would go to Lienz, some to Spittal, some to Št. Vid, and others to Judenburg (refugee camps in Austria).  Anton’s group was designated to be moved to Judenburg.  On June 29, they were part of a group that was loaded onto 9 trucks with about 25 people on each truck.  They were still worried that they might be taken back to Slovenia, so they made a plan for their escape:  if the truck should turn towards Slovenia, Pavel Kokelj would throw a blanket across the windshield and stop the truck.  The truck headed north and they began to think that this time the British were being honest.  But when they arrived in Judenburg, the truck went past the city towards the Russian sector.  When they saw the red flag with a hammer and sickle, they became very worried that the British were handing them over to the Russians.  Again, Pavel got ready to throw a blanket across the truck’s windshield.  But - thank God - he didn’t need to use it.  At the last intersection, the truck turned back towards the city, to a former army barracks.  That night, their room was so crowded that the Kokelj brothers, the tallest members of the group, had their feet sticking out the door.  But they soon fell asleep.  Compared to the wet fields of the past month and a half, it was a huge improvement to have a dry floor and a solid roof over their heads.

Anton and his group lived in barracks #27 in the Liechtenstein camp near Judenburg for almost three years.  They had one room about 18 by 18 feet.  Initially, the group was 22 people, but after a year, it was down to 11.  Camp rations usually amounted to less than 1,000 calories per day (a typical American diet exceeds 2,000 calories).  In order to avoid starvation, some of the refugees worked for nearby farmers, where they were often treated like slaves in exchange for a small amount of food.  Clothes were also in very short supply. Most of the refugees could not afford to buy new clothes if they wore out  what they had brought with them from Slovenia.

Not far from the camp, Anton found a pile of warplanes that were so damaged in the war that the Germans decided they were no longer useable.  The refugees returned frequently to this pile, removing pieces of aluminum, wiring and other materials, which they then used to make pots, washbasins, spoons, and many other useful implements.

Most of the refugees still hoped to return home to Slovenia.  They listened closely for any news regarding political developments at home and elsewhere.  Sometimes, the news was hopeful, indicating that it might soon be safe to return home.  However, as time went by, it became clearer that the communists were consolidating their power.  Anton received reports that some of his brothers in Slovenia were in prison and that some of his friends were tortured and killed. 

On October 10, 1945, Anton was excited to discover that nearby farmers sometimes missed some nice potatoes as they were completing their harvest.  In the following month, the refugees often returned to those fields.  At one time, there were 35 refugees in one field digging with all kinds of tools, ranging from wooden sticks to pickaxes.  Those potatoes lasted until the following spring and helped prevent starvation.

In November 1945, administration of the camp transferred from the British military to UNRRA, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Agency.  A few refugees were able to get low-wage jobs in the camp offices, kitchens, etc.  Gradually, UNRRA also began distributing some badly needed clothes.  By January, 1946, almost everyone in barracks #27 was wearing the same green overcoats with huge collars and yellow trim on the left sleeve. 

Camp life was not always miserable.  Every evening, all the refugees from Žiri gathered in barracks #27. First they prayed the rosary, then they played chess and other games. Some evenings, they danced and made music.  Erznožnik played the harmonica, Fr. Kopač played an aluminum banjo, Levičar played on a homemade tambourine, Anton played bass (on a broom), someone else played on a comb, and others played on the pots and pans that they had made from warplanes.

 

Sometimes, Anton and his friends had heated arguments about what happened during the war.   If they had resisted the communists more strongly, could they have prevented the communists from taking over?  Could they have saved their homes and their families?  Anton often had dreams about returning to his home.  The dreams became nightmares, with the Partisans chasing him, and him trying to escape through the overgrown ravine near his home.

In November, 1945, Anton began an arrangement with a nearby merchant who provided thread (which was at that time very hard to get) so that Anton’s sister Mici and fiancee Cilka could make bobbin lace.  Since Anton had experience and training as a business manager, he took care of the business duties while Mici and Cilka did the lacemaking. In a few months, their lacemaking business grew to the point where they had 15 women making lace, and Anton was selling everything they made. Anton bicycled to nearby towns, selling bobbin lace.  He began to draw some of the designs himself, some of them in response to specific requests from customers.  This provided another small source of income, a way to buy some extra food and necessities.

On February 25, 1946, five members of Anton’s group decided to return to Slovenia and accept their situation, whatever the consequences.  They knew they would probably be harrassed and jailed, but they did not see a future for themselves in the refugee camp, and they very much wanted to be home, reunited with their families.  In the coming months, another 6 people from Anton’s group decided to return home.

On May 5, 1946 , elections were held for the refugee camp board.  UNRRA was pressuring everyone to find paid work to support the camp, and Anton was elected to find jobs for everyone.  With few decent jobs available, Anton’s election turned out to be a difficult, thankless task.  Some of the men obtained jobs cutting lumber in the woods and working on road construction.  Cilka got a part-time job helping a local shoemaker.  All the jobs were low-wage; Anton refused to place people in certain jobs because the working conditions were intolerable.   

On June 5, 1946, Anton begged the UNRRA camp director for raw materials so the refugees could make things to sell.  The director said, “You don’t know how to make anything, you don’t have anything to show!”  Anton decided to show him what could be made out of nothing.  He went around the camp, wrote down what kinds of things his fellow refugees could make, and in less than a week, he organized a craft show.  All together, 50 refugees displayed 300 items, all things they made in the camp: pots made out of downed warplanes, little heart-shaped sewing boxes, brushes made of larch branches, brooms made of birch branches, shoes, a barrel, a carpenter’s wooden table, pictures, lots of bobbin lace, and other things.   Anton explained to the UNRRA director that much of the bobbin lace was made out of thread from discarded flour sacks; he emphasized that they could do much better if they had the proper raw materials. Everyone was impressed, including the director.

 

After a month, UNRRA finally provided a small amount of wood and thread.  Anton organized a bigger craft show, this time inviting people from the nearby city of Judenburg.  The show was a wonderful success, generating a great deal of sympathy and respect for the refugees, and interest in buying their products.  By August, 1946, Anton had more orders for bobbin lace than he could fill.  Anton paid himself at the same hourly rate as his lacemakers.

 

On October 22, 1946, Anton and Cilka were married in the refugee camp.  They had hoped to be married by Anton’s priest brother Stanko in the presence of their parents, but Stanko was in prison in Slovenia and it would be impossible for their parents to travel to Austria.  Anton had also been reluctant to get married when they were so poor and homeless, and knew nothing about their future.  But he was becoming more concerned about Cilka’s reputation.  They had been living together (with up to 20 other roommates) for over a year.  When they finally got married, all those worries were set aside by the joy of their wedding.

 

In November, 1946, UNRRA decided to set up a camp store and take over all sales of refugee products.  As a result, sales declined sharply. Anton became increasingly dissatisfied with the refugee camp board and resigned his position.   In January, 1947, UNRRA allowed Anton to resume his lace sales, but he had to pay a tax of about 25% for “camp expenses.”

 

On February 11, 1947, Anton’s brother Jože and sister Mici returned to Slovenia.  Jože received word that a group of soldiers had camped out next to his home and their officer had moved into his home, where his wife had been living.  Despite his worries about what would happen to him in Slovenia, Jože decided he needed to be with his wife.  Mici was still single and her feelings were more mixed.  But Jože was concerned what would happen to her if she stayed in the camp and so he insisted that she go back with him.  As they left, Anton had tears in his eyes.  He was afraid this would be the last time he would see any member of his family.   He wrote that the camp was now his home and his wife Cilka was his family.

 

A month later, Anton received a letter from Jože who was relieved that his wife had stayed faithful to him, and that he was not imprisoned when he returned.  (The communists put him in prison later.)

 

In 1947, the local Austrian police began harassing the refugees.  There had been a rule all along that refugees were not allowed to travel more than 10 kilometers from the camp without permission, but that rule was widely ignored.  In April, 1947, Anton’s roommate Franc Demšar was sentenced to 90 days in jail for riding his bike more than 10 kilometers from the camp.  

 

Police also began searching refugees’ rooms, ostensibly looking for stolen items, but taking whatever they wanted.  On May 5, 1947, Anton was working on a lace design when five policemen arrived to search his room.  They said “Show us your typewriter, we need to do an investigation! “ He told them he had nothing to hide and pointed to the typewriter on the table.   His brother-in-law had bought it with hard-earned money. The police insisted it must be stolen and confiscated it, along with some cans of food which his roommates had received as payment for their logging work.  Anton realized later that the typewriter was probably taken because he had frequently helped a friend type letters to the UNRRA director, alleging corruption among the camp leadership.  Anton was furious:  as a refugee, he had no rights.  He wrote, “To whom can I complain?  To God?”

 

By May, 1947, Anton again had enough orders for bobbin lace to occupy anyone in the camp who had the necessary skill and interest. But UNRRA began insisting that the lacemakers obtain higher paying jobs outside the camp.

 

On June 6, 1947,  Anton and Cilka applied for emigration to America, Canada and Argentina.  On July 7, 1947, the International Refugee Organization (IRO), another UN agency, took over camp administration from UNRRA.  The IRO cut the number of paid jobs inside the camp and began increasing pressure on the refugees to return home.

 

September 9, 1947 marked the departure of the first group from Judenburg for Canada. The group included 6 Slovenians from Anton’s camp - Jože and Franc Bajc, Ivan Preželj, Ivan Vičič, Jože Zajc, and Ivan Zupančič.  Only able-bodied men without families were being accepted into Canada.

 

On September 21, 1947, two local newspapers reported that all 7,000 Slovenians in Austria would be forced back to Slovenia.  Anton and his fellow refugees became very afraid and hopeless, but there wasn’t much they could do about it.  One thing they did was to organize all-night prayer vigils, taking turns praying in the camp chapel.  A month later, a special commission visited the camp to interrogate every refugee,  Apparently they were looking for war criminals, and they treated people as if they were already convicted.  Another month later, Anton’s acquaintance, Filip Orlov, hanged himself.  People said he was probably feeling hopeless about his future.

 

On November 12, 1947, Anton heard on the radio that about 100 “war criminals” were returned to Yugoslavia.  Anton’s brother-in-law Mire Kolenc was informed that he might be sent back to Slovenia for unknown reasons, perhaps his black marketeering.  In March 1948, a British officer advised Mire that he should try to emigrate to England to avoid being sent back to Slovenia.

 

In January – March 1948, Anton became increasingly worried about the future. Cilka was pregnant.  Sales of bobbin lace were not going well, and he had no regular work.  He didn’t know if he could ever go back home, or where he would find a new home.  How would he fulfill his duties as a father when he couldn’t even support himself?  He often felt sick;  a doctor diagnosed his problem as stomach ulcers.

 

On March 4, 1948, the camp director read a list of 48 refugees, including Anton, who would have to leave soon for construction jobs in Canada.  Their families could come later.  The married men said they would refuse to leave without their families.  But the next day, the IRO replied that the refugees would lose their rights to food and lodging if they didn’t sign forms agreeing to move to Canada without their families.  They felt they had no choice but to sign.  On  March 15, 1948, all the wives were summoned to the camp office to sign forms allowing their husbands to emigrate to Canada without them.  Most of them, including Cilka, refused to sign. 

 

On March 27, 1948, Anton and Cilka, together with their witnesses Mire Kolenc and Franc Kokelj, went to the city offices for their civil marriage.  It was already a year and a half since their church marriage, but they were told that some countries require proof of a civil marriage for immigration.  There was an organ playing, and then the official (an old man named Gelter) preached to them about marriage.  He acted so much like a priest that they all thought he looked silly.  Anton needed all his willpower to keep from bursting out laughing.  Cilka thought it was all very funny, too.  But they got past that, and as they listened to the old man preach, tears came to their eyes.  Mr. Gelter really had some beautiful advice and heartfelt wishes for them.  Anton noted in his diary that, since he and Cilka had now been married twice, their marriage should certainly last.  In fact, it lasted until Cilka’s death 58 years later.

 

On April 7, 1948, the refugees at the Judenburg camp were loaded into open-air trucks and moved to the Trofaiach camp about 20 miles away.   Most of them opposed the move because they expected conditions in the new location to be worse, but the IRO gave them no choice.  They had no idea what to expect at the new camp, so they packed everything they had, including their firewood.  Anton took down the boards that walled off a corner of the barracks for him and Cilka.  They also took apart beds, furniture and electrical wiring that they had set up in their barracks.  Later, they learned that they didn’t need to pack all those things.  Conditions at the new camp turned out to be better than they expected.

 

Anton noted in his diary that they had spent almost three years at the Judenburg camp.  During that time, they experienced many sad times as well as happy times.   There was a danger that they would lose their morals, but they lived a more “Christian” life in the camp than they did back home.  It was especially difficult for some of the men who had to leave Slovenia without their wives, and who had not seen them for many years.  But, considering the fact that so many of the refugees were healthy young men and women, they behaved very honorably.  They prayed a lot and they had a lot of innocent fun.  And, despite the crowded conditions, they got along reasonably well.

 

Near the new camp, Anton and Cilka were pleased to meet a Slovenian shoemaker named Čopi who agreed to provide Cilka with some part-time work.  Anton liked the surroundings at the new camp.  The spruce woods behind the camp were especially beautiful and ideal for Anton’s walks. 

 

At the new camp, a British sergeant named McKeon supervised refugee labor assignments.  Anton and a group of 10 were assigned to pound fenceposts along the camp’s roads.  The pay was very low, barely enough to buy a few loaves of bread each month.

 

On April 26, 1948, a large group left for Canada, including Mire Kolenc, Franc and Janko Demšar, Franc and Cene Kokelj, and Vinko Kržišnik.  It was a difficult departure for all of them, but especially for Mire, who had a wife and two children back in Slovenia. Anton noted that these were their closest friends, all people from the same town, people that they had lived with (usually in the same room!) for the past 3 years.  Through all the adversities of those years, they supported each other, sharing their sorrows, hopes and joys.

 

In May 1948, Anton tried to reestablish the lace-making business in the new camp.  Seven lacemakers agreed to work with him, but Anton had trouble finding people who were willing to buy the lace.  With his wife pregnant, he decided he had to find a job that paid more.

 

On July 20, 1948, Anton began working with a construction company located over an hour from the camp. The work involved shoveling dirt out of a 9 foot deep ditch for a sewer pipe.   That evening, he was so tired he couldn’t eat or drink.  He continued this hard labor at various construction sites until October 1948.  He was usually paid according to how much he dug.  His pay for 10 hours of hard labor was barely enough for a 2 pound loaf of bread.  Sometimes his pickaxe hit a rock and it felt like 440 volts went through his body.   But he noted in his diary, “I can’t give up!”

 

Late on August 15, 1948, Cilka got up, saying “I don’t know what’s happening.  I feel healthy, but I’m losing water.”  The camp doctor called for a nurse and driver to take them to the hospital in Leoben, about 5 miles away.  The camp’s driver, Štefan Tovornik, had just returned, very tired from a day-long trip but he agreed to take Cilka to the hospital.  (Many years later, Anton was able to repay the favor by helping Tovornik and his family with housing and work when they came to America.)  The next day, Anton rode a bike to the Leoben hospital.  Cilka was still in the operating room.  They wouldn’t let him in, but he could see that she was smiling.  A nurse told him Cilka had given birth to a baby boy at 11:30 a.m.  At 1 p.m., they brought Cilka to her room and Anton was finally allowed to visit her.  Despite having just given birth to her first baby, and a large one at that, she felt good and looked very happy.  Anton was relieved and happy to see both mother and son looking very healthy.  A week later, Cilka and their baby returned to the camp.  They decided to call him Janko (Johnny).

 

On September 30, 1948, about 100 Slovenians, the first group from the Trofaiach camp,  left for Argentina.  This first group was followed later by many more.  Anton noted in his diary, “That’s where I would most like to go.   I think my skills and honest hard work would be appreciated in South America.  My skills might not be appreciated  in Canada, which is more advanced in both culture and technology.  And I have no hopes for America, since I have no relatives or acquaintances there to help me.  Besides, I hear that the fight for survival in America is simply not human.”

 

On October 11, 1948, Anton saw a doctor regarding pain he was feeling during his construction work.  The doctor diagnosed a hernia and determined that Anton needed to be admitted to a hospital and have an operation as soon as possible.  Four days later, Anton had a succesful hernia operation.  He stayed in the hospital for 15 days and became very bored.

 

On November 23, 1948, another group of refugees left for Canada, including Mimi Albiani, Ferdo and Terezija Pušelj with their son, Marija Zorc and many others.

 

On January 3, 1949, about 300 more refugees left from Trofaiach for Argentina, including about 70 Slovenians.  Anton noted that they wished they could go back home to Slovenia - but not to slavery, suffering and death.

 

On January 11, 1949, Angela Filipič died during childbirth, but her baby, a boy, survived.  Angela and her husband Marjan were good friends of Anton and Cilka.  The tragedy shook Anton deeply.  What if this had happened to Cilka? 

 

On April 21, 1949, IRO staff reviewed each person’s plans for emigration and threatened to evict anyone who refused to make plans for emigration.  For most people, the IRO recommended emigration to Australia.

 

As springtime arrived in the camp, Anton resumed his walks in the woods, now with his infant son Johnny.  He noted that Johnny really liked these walks and paid attention to every detail; he noticed birds or squirrels quicker than Anton did.

 

On May 30, 1949, the first large group from Trofaiach left for America, including the Jernej Zupan family (5 people) and others, altogether 26 people.  That same day, Anton noted that the camp food was the worst in 3 years:  nothing but coffee in the morning, bean soup or polenta for lunch, and coffee or inedible soup for dinner.  He wondered if this was how the IRO would force everyone to leave.

 

The next day, Anton took over Jernej Zupan’s mail carrier duties.  It was not a paid job, but the tips sometimes amounted to more than most of the paid jobs that were available at that time.

 

On June 6, 1949, Anton received some good news:  John and Mary Brezic agreed to be their sponsors in America!  They were an older couple who wanted Anton to help them, and maybe someday take over,  their farm in Wisconsin.  In the following months, there were many forms to fill out, multiple medical examinations, vaccinations and long waits for official approvals.  Finally, on November 16, 1949, the American consul informed Anton that his application for immigration was approved!

 

On November 24, 1949, Anton and Cilka said farewell to friends who were still at Trofaiach (most had already left for other countries by that time).  Together with the Cerar, Sršen and Rihtar families, they boarded a train which took them to Salzburg.  In Salzburg, they went through more questioning and medical exams and, after two days, boarded a special IRO refugee train, headed for Naples, Italy.  After  more medical exams and more anxious waiting in a camp near Naples, they finally boarded the United States Transport Ship General Greeley on December 11, 1949.  Cilka and Johnny were assigned to a small cabin with 3 Polish women.  Anton was assigned to a men’s dormitory, lower down in the ship.  The trip began well, but the wind and waves soon picked up and made people seasick.  Everyone was at the ship’s railings, throwing up into the Mediterranean.  The next night, the sea was so wild that announcements were being made on the loudspeakers, telling everyone to stay in their cabins. But it didn’t seem much safer to stay in bed, either.  In the dining room, any tables and chairs that were not fastened down were destroyed.  In the clinic, large bottles of medicine broke.  In the kitchen, hundreds of dishes broke into pieces.

 

The next day, the sky finally cleared, the sea became calm, and seasickness subsided.  After that there were more times when the ocean became rough and seasickness returned.  Cilka and Johnny were also seasick, and Johnny was teething.  Each day the ship’s staff announced the miles completed:  usually about 400 miles a day.  The entire trip was about 4,400 miles. Anton wondered if they would make it to New York alive.

 

On December 22, 1949, everyone was up early and out on the deck.  At 8 a.m., they looked through the fog and saw the outlines of dry land: it was the New Jersey shoreline.  At 10 they caught sight of the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyscrapers.  Many years later, Cilka talked about how wonderful it was to see the Statue of Liberty.  It was a symbol of the freedom that they had been seeking for so many years.  But it was also a symbol of how far they had traveled and the fact that they would probably never be able to go home again. 

 

A boat came to the ship with a customs officer and a number of medical officials.  Anton noted in his diary. “There was no need for X-rays, they could see right through our stomachs.”  Everyone was very hungry.  By the evening, the passengers and their luggage were transferred to busses, and then to a train in New York City.  At the train station, Anton looked everywhere for a loaf of bread, but all he could find were sandwiches, “so thin you could see through them and expensive as saffron.”

 

That night, a New York Central train, with large, shiny, new aluminum cars, took them to Chicago.  There they transferred to a smaller Soo Line train which took them to Marshfield, Wisconsin.  In Marshield, John Brezic and others were waiting for them.  Around 6 a.m., they finally arrived at the Brezic farm.  Anton and Cilka were tired and hungry, but too polite to ask for food.  When they got up to their bedroom, Johnny, who had been sad for weeks, suddenly became so happy and excited that Anton and Cilka just laughed at him and cried for joy.  And so they began their new life in America with hope and determination. 

 

Closing Comments by John Žakelj

 

The Wisconsin farm turned out to be too small to support us;  after six months, we moved to Cleveland, USA, where there were jobs and a large Slovenian community.  My father’s first regular job in America was manual labor in a metalworking factory.  He lifted heavy steel parts and cleaned up oil and metal shavings, sometimes in extreme heat.  He was not a large man, and more used to management than heavy physical labor.  I remember how he would come home, exhausted, with oil-soaked hands and metal slivers embedded in his fingers.  He went to evening school to become a machinist and earn higher pay for his family.  After a few years, he became a machinist but found the job to be too stressful.  Heavy steel parts had to be drilled and shaped to the thousandth of an inch. Machinery often broke down and expensive parts were wasted, usually with little understanding from the bosses.  He became more and more anxious, sometimes to the point of being unable to work.  He was hospitalized a number of times without specific physical illnesses.  At that time (1956) he wrote “May God  help me regain my health, keep me out of the insane asylum, and not let me die insane!”

 

I believe these episodes of anxiety were not just job stress – they were also an effect of the war and the refugee experience.  My father wondered why he lived when so many others died.  He questioned the choices he had made.  He mourned his mother’s death without him at her bedside in 1954.  He worried about the brothers and sisters who had stayed behind in Slovenia, most of them in prisons and labor camps for many years after the war, and then mistreated after their release.  All these things ground him down, but other things gave him hope and the will to live:  his wife Cilka, his children, his church, the large community of Slovenian immigrants, the freedom and economic opportunities provided by America, and working at home on his own projects, including his writing.  And, after a number of years as a machinist, he became a factory janitor, which he found to be less stressful.  Later, he wrote in his diary, “I am still happier being a janitor in America than a slave in communist Slovenia.”

 

When we came to America, I was their only child, a year and a half old.  About two years later (1952), my brother Tony was born, then brother Joe a year after that, and sister Mary two years after Joe.  My mother was quite busy with housework and raising children, but she still managed to find time to go door to door selling her lacework.  Later, when the children began attending school, she worked as a part-time cleaning lady for rich people and offices.  My mother provided the positive, selfless spirit that kept our family together and thriving through many difficult times.  After she died in March, 2004, my father missed her greatly.

 

When my siblings and I were growing up, my parents skimped on everything to make ends meet, but not on books and education for their children.  Twenty years later, they were very proud when we graduated from college.  I obtained a degree in languages and psychology, my brothers obtained multiple degrees in mathematics and computer science, and my sister became a pediatrician.  It was achievements like this that helped my parents feel better about leaving their beloved homeland and their families in Slovenia.  The communists had tried to destroy them, but instead my parents prospered and thrived.  Despite all these achievements, one nagging issue continued to gnaw at my father’s insides, and that was the historical record and how he and the other refugees were perceived.

 

When we came to America in 1949, my father found many people who wouldn’t listen or couldn’t understand his side of the story.  The Yugoslav government had spread lies about how the refugees had collaborated with the Nazis.  Many Americans believed those lies and called us traitors and collaborators.  This hurt my father deeply.  It’s difficult to express how important it was for him to set the record straight, but it wasn’t until his articles were published in America and Slovenia 40 - 50 years later that he felt some balance had been restored.  In that decade before he died, he achieved a measure of peace and satisfaction.

 

Working on these diaries has also been satisfying for me personally.  I have gained a better understanding of my parents and myself, as well as a better understanding of the ways that truth can lead to reconciliation and real peace between enemies.  And I have come to know many fascinating people who shared these experiences -  mostly children of refugees who were in the camps with my parents.  Many of their parents are dead now, but the children still want to know who their parents were and what really happened.  They understand that these experiences are part of their identity and they find my father’s diaries invaluable.  I hope this book will make it easier for people to understand what really happened, to learn from history and to be inspired by our parents’ faith, hope and values.  They believed that we, their children and grandchildren, could make this world a better place, a place where each person is treated with respect, where people are not punished for doing what they believe is right, where each person has opportunities and responsibilities to grow and to make their own contribution to society. 

 

Zakelj Diary Home Page: http://bbhhs96.dyndns.org/~zakeljdiary/



[1] Slovenia 1945 by John Corsellis and Marcus Ferrar, page 41