Where Do I Belong? a Refugee's Story

Where do I belong? A refugee's story

By Aleksandra M. & William Peckham

Any seasoned soldier knows to open his mouth during an explosion - it prevents the sudden pressure from collapsing the lungs. My father taught me that when I was eight years old. I was no soldier.

The war in former Yugoslavia ended in 1995 and he has passed away since then. I am no longer a young girl, but an ambitious young woman. Despite changes in my life, the war that I lived through will always be part of me. This will always be my story. My name is Aleksandra.

Main image: Aleks' home in what is now Croatia. Note the left corner, where the house was bombed

I moved from the former Yugoslavia to theUnited Statesover 12 years ago, but in my mind I still walk through the streets of beautiful Petrinja, a town now part ofCroatia. The territory I lived in –Krajina- was mostly Catholic, but my Orthodox Christian family and other groups lived there too. Now, as an American citizen, I finally feel safe from persecution.

Last year, I returned to the house I grew up in a house that my father built himself. A rusty door and its grassy threshold served as reminders of my long absence. Cracked walls and broken windows told the story of a time I would rather forget. The smell of mold was overwhelming and my knees felt weak as I walked from room to room.

I loved that house just like I loved playing dominos and tending to my flower garden. I don’t play dominos anymore and I haven’t planted a flower since the armies pushed us out of Krajina. Still, I will always call it home and I would die for it. I almost did.

The city of Petrinja was not how I remembered. Faces were foreign to me; destroyed buildings had been rebuilt; newly painted houses had replaced the old, charming ones of my childhood memories. Petrinja and I have grown apart. The town has changed but I have not.

From what I remember everyone lived relatively peacefully during all of my early childhood. Then my father lost his job because of his religion affiliation, and I began to see divisions in my town. One day my grandfather took me to the family dentist, who was well known and a family friend. He was also Catholic. We entered the office and found it had been raided. All the doors were open and not a soul to be found. I knew something was wrong and I held my grandfather’s hand tight. He grabbed me by the arms and said, “We are leaving." But on our way out we passed by the bathroom and I saw blood all over the tiles and bathtub. My grandfather picked me up and ran out the house. On the way home he said, “You did not see anything. You are too young for this.” But the truth was, even though I was young, I sensed something bad happening in my town. I heard about the kidnappings, unreported murders and on the way to school, I saw the destroyed churches and threats written on the walls of my town. My life was straddling a line of complete chaos and violence.

The bombing started suddenly. Frequent strikes by Croatian soldiers sent us running for the basement. My father, as an able-bodied male, had to join the Orthodox militia. Armed men would appear in our home at any time and my father would have to go with them. At first, He tried to hide in the attic or chicken coop. It worked for a short time, until we were threatened. They told my mother, “Your safety is not guaranteed until he joins us.” He would return days later. Those days were the worst.

My grandmother lived on the opposite side of Croatia-Krajina border, making it difficult to see her.UN peacekeepershelped my family visit her by taking us over the border in a UN truck once a month. We would talk for a few hours and then return in the truck without risking our lives. The days I saw my grandmother were good, even though it was difficult to leave her at the end of our short visit.

With my grandmother living in the enemy territory, I could never understand who the real enemy was. Neighbors became targets, friends became traitors, and my parents would tell me who to talk to and who to play with.

TheUnited Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)helped my family by giving us food to eat and clean water to drink. After the bombings the water and soil became poisoned from the chemicals. For New Years I looked forward to receiving my holiday gift from UNICEF. I was always happy with whatever I got. Usually it would be little notebooks that smelled nice or pens with animal shapes on the top; anything to distract from reality.

We lived with the fighting until August 1995.One morning sirens went off before the bombing started and it was the day that would never end. My father was at the battlefield. My mother, brother and I were alone at home terrified. There was no electricity and we could not get any information. Later, my father came home, he said pale and panicked, “We are leaving now, start packing,” At that moment I hated him. What about my dog and my flowers? I ignored his orders and as my town was bombed, I ran upstairs to water the flowers on the outside my bedroom. I sat up there listening and watching my town go up in flames. Nothing mattered to me anymore. I wanted a stray bullet to hit me; I wanted to die with my flowers and my town. My father raced into the room screaming. He grabbed me and dragged me down the stairs slapped face for disobeying him. We loaded up the tractor. I kissed the walls of my home goodbye. We drove for four days until we crossed the border to the Serbian villages, where not everyone gave us the warmest welcome.

For the next two years we lived like nomads, exchanging work for food or shelter. Most of the time, my parents and brother ended up in one room and that would be our home. Sleeping, cooking, bathing, studying would be done in that one room. There was no privacy. After school my brother worked, cutting wood, transporting metal, and shoveling snow. During the summer, my family and I worked in a cornfield from six in the morning to nightfall in exchange for flour that we would sell for money.

One day when I came home from school, I found my mother crying. She looked weak and helpless. I had been afraid for her for a long time. She is a tiny woman and had endured a lot of loss and pain. She wrote to the US Embassy in Belgrade and told them our life story. A year later, we received a letter, offering us the opportunity to relocate into the United States. We arrived at JFK New York on April 9, 1997 and were taken to Connecticut where my mother and brother live to this day.

Since then, I have become a woman. Being a victim of ethnic cleansing meant learning lessons of loss, acceptance, pride and strength. My experience of violence has even shaped my professional path in life. Nevertheless, I think the essence of a human being cannot be altered by a strong argument, a monumental battle, or influential war. I believe we are born with a soul that sustains us through our entire lives. The essence of my being is still the same, I am the little girl who knew to open her mouth during a bomb explosion; no different than the girl who only wanted to play dominos and work in a garden. No kind of cleansing could exterminate my spirit.

In a world that robbed me of my childhood, I had to grow up fast. Bomb shelters replaced tree houses. Shouting took the place of laughter. We bought food instead of toys. I worried whether my father would return home from a war, not if I would pass my math exam at school.

The war in a former Yugoslavia has been over for more than twelve years. But in some ways it still rages in me. I am a distinct casualty of war, I have lost my identity. Krajina does not exist anymore, Yugoslavia has been divided into six independent countries, and I do not belong to any of them. So who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? I am a refugee and this is what it is like to be a refugee.