Calling home isn't easy for those with friends and relatives in provinces of war-torn Yugoslavia.
"I have to make 20 attempts" each time, said Croatian native Boris Majnaric, who immigrated to the United States in 1965 and is now teaching French in the Salt Lake City School District. "It's so strenuous to even do my job, because my family is in danger at any moment," not knowing what to expect, he said. "My phone bills have skyrocketed the last four months" and the stress even required him to end vocal lessons.But it could be worse, observed another native of Croatia. They could still be in Yugoslavia, where the psychological effects of war can be debilitating, said Bojka Milicic, 40, an anthropology professor at the University of Utah. "The pressure is almost unbearable; it's tremendous."
Majnaric can relate to the current battles; he was only a young boy when the Nazis conducted a bombing raid on his hometown of Delnice during World War II's winter of 1943-44. The resulting plunge in air pressure slammed him into the 10-foot-high ceiling and dropped him to the floor, breaking his left femur and left arm in two places, he said.
"My mother's arm was bleeding as she was carrying me down from our second-floor hotel room," Majnaric said, "and I was unconscious. When we went outside, it was 20 degrees below zero and the Nazi planes started shooting at us." Regaining consciousness, "I remember seeing planes flying low, bullets grazing trees and then, darkness."
The family waited in someone's basement for two weeks until a horse and buggy could be secured to transport young Boris to a doctor. "For five years after the war ended," said Majnaric," I had nightmares and would wake up screaming because it was so traumatic. War changes lives and destroys childhoods. That's the difference between a war on TV and a war in person."
One of the more heart-wrenching developments of the war will be that "90 percent of the (Croatian) children will not have Christmas," said Croatian native Silvia Tasovac, 55. Because of free elections in Croatia, 1989 and 1990 holidays have been the only government-recognized Christmases in 45 years for Tasovac's countrymen, she said.
For native Croatians living in Utah, their homeland's war with the Yugoslavian federal army appears hopeless. Croatia hasn't been able to stop the advancing Serbian-controlled military. Tensions can be traced to June 25, when Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia, resulting in accusations of human-rights violations between Serbia and Croatia.
Previously inaccurate American news reports of the war have improved, according to Croatian native and U. math professor Dragan Milicic, 43, but his countrymen insist that the U.S. government's perception of the conflict hasn't.
Majnaric, who calls Croatia's apparent lack of world support "political murder," hopes the United States will be one of the first countries to recognize Croatian independence, rather than the 37th, as it was when Lithuania declared sovereignty. And Slovenian native Rok Sosic noted Secretary of State James Baker "supports a unified Yugoslavia . . . This shows a misunderstanding, which is also among (other) world leaders; the U.S. position is wrong."
While military attention is directed at Croatia, Slovenia did win a 10-day war because the "army didn't expect a fight," said Sosic, 32, a U. doctoral candidate in computer science. His parents and sister live four miles from the bomb-ravaged airport in Kranj, Slovenia, a fact that worried him into calling twice a day during the war. Now, he sends electronic mail daily and calls once or twice a month.
Pavle Pandric', 27, a U. math graduate student, also worries about his parents. Living in Zagreb, Croatia's capital, "they never know what tomorrow will be like" because of the violence.
Meanwhile, the horror of war continues. Sosic and Majnaric tell of Serbian soldiers singing of murder and cannibalism directed at Croatians, which Sosic derides as "disgusting." Dragan Milicic says he has been told of snipers prowling through city streets, peering in windows and intimidating with gunfire those who dare leave their homes, while his wife Bojka says looting and violence are common. Trauma like this is emotionally gut-wrenching, he said.
Both his and Bojka's parents live in Zagreb and prefer staying in their homes to moving, while Bojka is "happy (her parents) are in a warm place with electricity and water. They don't think beyond that." She said her 91-year-old grandmother is "too frail" to walk to the bomb shelter.
The concern for her loved ones has left Bojka Milicic feeling "helplessness, despair, anger and depression . . . We need to come to a resolution to impact what's going on." The war seems to touch every facet of Milicic's life: Her father, a college professor, has no students to teach because they joined the army, while a friend invited a family of six to move into her apartment because they had no other place to go.
Milicic feels the impact could be made from "approximately 2 to 3 million second- and third-generation Croations here in the U.S. . . . I'm disappointed there hasn't been a stronger reaction from them; maybe lives could have been saved," she said. "They seem to need a large number of dead to do something. How do you replace human lives?"
The ugliness of war is somewhat offset by charitable donations. "The Mormon Church sent sizable economic help in 1,000 blankets" to the war zone, said Milicic. Majnaric added, "Croatians are very grateful for that."