[Sono 12mila i bambini serbi della Bosnia che hanno trovato rifugio in
Grecia negli ultimi anni...]
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_862654_13/01/
2005_51706
The story of a child forced to flee his homeland
His country, Yugoslavia, was being fragmented by wars and Lazar, then
9, found solace in the heart of a Greek family
[PHOTO: Lazar flanked by Iordanis and Dimitris Mallis at the boys’ home
in Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, on the first peaceful and safe Christmas of
his life.]
By Iota Myrtsioti - Kathimerini
In December 1995, dozens of children from war-torn Yugoslavia arrived
at Thessaloniki railway station to meet Greek families that were ready
to offer them love, family warmth and security as part of the «children
of war» project organized by the Central Union of Municipalities
(KEDKE).
Among the new arrivals was Lazar Mentarovic, a 9-year-old Serb from
Bosnia who, like the other children, carried a change of clothes in his
luggage and his own drama - the horror of war - which he had
experienced in his village, Mocronoge, near the town of Dirvar.
Waiting for him on the platform was a family from Kalamaria. He didn't
know a word of Greek and spoke no other languages but his mother
tongue; his hosts didn't know a word of Serbian. Yet a strong bond grew
between the terrified child and the family of Evdoxia Malli, a bond
that has endured.
Mentarovic's story is one of many that unfolded during the civil war in
Yugoslavia, when Greek families offered to help children, soothing some
of the pain and distress they had suffered as a result of the carnage.
Malli has written the story of her family's relationship with what she
calls their «adopted child,» she told Kathimerini, and plans to publish
it soon. «They were such intense moments that they came out
effortlessly on paper,» she said.
«The first day was awful. I had on my hands a child who wept
continually. I didn't know how to reassure him. I didn't know what he
was thinking - he didn't speak. I didn't know if he was afraid of us. I
tried to calm him down by speaking to him gently and I hoped he would
understand that from the warmth of my voice. I put him to sleep with my
other children. But in the morning, he wouldn't come out of the room.
When I went into the room, two tearful eyes peeked over the blanket and
looked at me in despair. I hugged him and talked to him non-stop. He
withdrew into himself and kept reading a little book which, as I found
out much later, contained wishes from his relatives who had written
about the trip to Greece. That ordeal of distancing lasted for three
days, until the children found a means of communication by playing with
a deck of cards. That's how he began to learn his first words of Greek.»
From then on, they lived together normally. Lazar's Greek improved in
the classes that were being given for the visiting children, and the
families overcame the difficulties of the unusual relationships by
talking with psychologists in specially set up groups.
At first, whenever Lazar heard an airplane, he would run and hide.
Gradually, however, the problems were overcome and Lazar started to
integrate into the family. He would call family members «grandfather,»
«grandmother,» «uncle» and «aunt» but never «mother.»
Time passed pleasantly into the summer, with excursions to different
parts of Greece. «We became close, we exchanged confidences and formed
tender relationships,» said Malli. «Besides, he's a very good person.
He didn't come here to have a good time and then disappear. His family
reciprocated everything when we we visited them in Novisad.»
«The landscape had lost its color,» Lazar told them when he showed them
the village from which he had fled with relatives, leaving his mother
for five-and-a-half years.
He went by cart to Novisad, where his aunt lived. His father and two
older brothers were still fighting in the war. His mother stayed in the
village with her elderly parents and father-in-law's brother. When they
heard that the Croats were entering the village, she decided to leave.
She put the three old people on the cart and set out with them and her
livestock (150 sheep) for Novisad. On the way, one of the elderly
people died and they returned home to bury him. By night, in torrential
rain, they dug the grave, hurriedly buried the body, then fled once
more. The journey took 70 days. By the time they reached Novisad, all
the animals had died. «We brought back what counts,» she told her
relatives: «Human lives.»
Lazar's older brother was missing for two years until the Red Cross
located him. His other brother was found in a camp and he too returned
to Novisad after the war. When the whole family - grandparents,
brothers, children and grandchildren - were gathered together again at
the aunt's house, they heard about Lazar's stay in Greece from his
school.
«I didn't know where the country was,» he told his «adopted mother»
later. «And I thought they spoke Serb there too.»
Since then, Lazar has visited every Christmas and summer except in
1999, during the bombardment. The family went back to the village after
some basic repairs were made to their ruined house with United Nations
aid.
«In 2002, we went to see them again in the village. They received us
with love; we felt very close. As we were leaving, Lazar's mother
looked me in the eye and said: 'I gave birth to Lazar; you brought him
up. You're his second mother.'»
Lazar is now in the final year of senior high school. He turns 18 in
July. Ahead of him is military service, study, a career. «I feel a
sense of responsibility for that child and I worry. I dream about him,
being a mother to support him, a friend to stand by him.»
---
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_100005_13/01/
2005_51705
‘They offered us whatever they had’
By the time Lazar returned to his homeland, he had learned quite a lot
of Greek. “On those last days,” recalled Malli, “I couldn’t accept that
he wouldn’t be with us anymore. I hid my tears so as not to spoil the
joy of his return. His departure was the most difficult moment: I’ll
always remember seeing his fingers outside the train window, becoming
dots, until I couldn’t see them anymore.”
After the initial separation, things changed. “We talked constantly on
the telephone. We cried. He wanted to come back but he thought of his
parents. Three months later, in October, we couldn’t bear it and we
went to Novisad to see him. There was a great crowd — relatives,
neighbors, friends — the whole village was there and they offered us
everything, whatever they had (milk, cheese, embroidery), in general
thanks for what we had given one of their people.”
---
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_100007_13/01/
2005_51704
Greeks took in 12,000 Serb children
STAVROS TZIMAS
More than 12,000 children from war-ravaged Yugoslavia came to Greece in
1992-1995, when slaughter was raging in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They were
all Serbs, even though Muslim and Croat children were suffering as much
or worse from the horrors of war.
Ordinary Greeks who offered hospitality to those children should not be
criticized for bias. The Greek line then was Greece-Serbia-Orthodoxy,
and it governed humanitarian initiatives. This does not diminish the
help given to those children by Greek families and agencies such as
KEDKE, the Church of Greece and Solidarity Caravan.
The combat has ceased in the former Yugoslavia, but the drama of
orphaned children goes on. Many of them live in institutions, in poor
conditions and without hope of anything better. Others roam the streets
of Belgrade, Serajevo and Zagreb, begging or picking pockets to eke out
a living.
Some luckier ones, like Lazar Mentarovic, survive thanks to the
humanity of families in Greece, which continue to offer them moral and
financial support in their country.
Grecia negli ultimi anni...]
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_862654_13/01/
2005_51706
The story of a child forced to flee his homeland
His country, Yugoslavia, was being fragmented by wars and Lazar, then
9, found solace in the heart of a Greek family
[PHOTO: Lazar flanked by Iordanis and Dimitris Mallis at the boys’ home
in Kalamaria, Thessaloniki, on the first peaceful and safe Christmas of
his life.]
By Iota Myrtsioti - Kathimerini
In December 1995, dozens of children from war-torn Yugoslavia arrived
at Thessaloniki railway station to meet Greek families that were ready
to offer them love, family warmth and security as part of the «children
of war» project organized by the Central Union of Municipalities
(KEDKE).
Among the new arrivals was Lazar Mentarovic, a 9-year-old Serb from
Bosnia who, like the other children, carried a change of clothes in his
luggage and his own drama - the horror of war - which he had
experienced in his village, Mocronoge, near the town of Dirvar.
Waiting for him on the platform was a family from Kalamaria. He didn't
know a word of Greek and spoke no other languages but his mother
tongue; his hosts didn't know a word of Serbian. Yet a strong bond grew
between the terrified child and the family of Evdoxia Malli, a bond
that has endured.
Mentarovic's story is one of many that unfolded during the civil war in
Yugoslavia, when Greek families offered to help children, soothing some
of the pain and distress they had suffered as a result of the carnage.
Malli has written the story of her family's relationship with what she
calls their «adopted child,» she told Kathimerini, and plans to publish
it soon. «They were such intense moments that they came out
effortlessly on paper,» she said.
«The first day was awful. I had on my hands a child who wept
continually. I didn't know how to reassure him. I didn't know what he
was thinking - he didn't speak. I didn't know if he was afraid of us. I
tried to calm him down by speaking to him gently and I hoped he would
understand that from the warmth of my voice. I put him to sleep with my
other children. But in the morning, he wouldn't come out of the room.
When I went into the room, two tearful eyes peeked over the blanket and
looked at me in despair. I hugged him and talked to him non-stop. He
withdrew into himself and kept reading a little book which, as I found
out much later, contained wishes from his relatives who had written
about the trip to Greece. That ordeal of distancing lasted for three
days, until the children found a means of communication by playing with
a deck of cards. That's how he began to learn his first words of Greek.»
From then on, they lived together normally. Lazar's Greek improved in
the classes that were being given for the visiting children, and the
families overcame the difficulties of the unusual relationships by
talking with psychologists in specially set up groups.
At first, whenever Lazar heard an airplane, he would run and hide.
Gradually, however, the problems were overcome and Lazar started to
integrate into the family. He would call family members «grandfather,»
«grandmother,» «uncle» and «aunt» but never «mother.»
Time passed pleasantly into the summer, with excursions to different
parts of Greece. «We became close, we exchanged confidences and formed
tender relationships,» said Malli. «Besides, he's a very good person.
He didn't come here to have a good time and then disappear. His family
reciprocated everything when we we visited them in Novisad.»
«The landscape had lost its color,» Lazar told them when he showed them
the village from which he had fled with relatives, leaving his mother
for five-and-a-half years.
He went by cart to Novisad, where his aunt lived. His father and two
older brothers were still fighting in the war. His mother stayed in the
village with her elderly parents and father-in-law's brother. When they
heard that the Croats were entering the village, she decided to leave.
She put the three old people on the cart and set out with them and her
livestock (150 sheep) for Novisad. On the way, one of the elderly
people died and they returned home to bury him. By night, in torrential
rain, they dug the grave, hurriedly buried the body, then fled once
more. The journey took 70 days. By the time they reached Novisad, all
the animals had died. «We brought back what counts,» she told her
relatives: «Human lives.»
Lazar's older brother was missing for two years until the Red Cross
located him. His other brother was found in a camp and he too returned
to Novisad after the war. When the whole family - grandparents,
brothers, children and grandchildren - were gathered together again at
the aunt's house, they heard about Lazar's stay in Greece from his
school.
«I didn't know where the country was,» he told his «adopted mother»
later. «And I thought they spoke Serb there too.»
Since then, Lazar has visited every Christmas and summer except in
1999, during the bombardment. The family went back to the village after
some basic repairs were made to their ruined house with United Nations
aid.
«In 2002, we went to see them again in the village. They received us
with love; we felt very close. As we were leaving, Lazar's mother
looked me in the eye and said: 'I gave birth to Lazar; you brought him
up. You're his second mother.'»
Lazar is now in the final year of senior high school. He turns 18 in
July. Ahead of him is military service, study, a career. «I feel a
sense of responsibility for that child and I worry. I dream about him,
being a mother to support him, a friend to stand by him.»
---
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_100005_13/01/
2005_51705
‘They offered us whatever they had’
By the time Lazar returned to his homeland, he had learned quite a lot
of Greek. “On those last days,” recalled Malli, “I couldn’t accept that
he wouldn’t be with us anymore. I hid my tears so as not to spoil the
joy of his return. His departure was the most difficult moment: I’ll
always remember seeing his fingers outside the train window, becoming
dots, until I couldn’t see them anymore.”
After the initial separation, things changed. “We talked constantly on
the telephone. We cried. He wanted to come back but he thought of his
parents. Three months later, in October, we couldn’t bear it and we
went to Novisad to see him. There was a great crowd — relatives,
neighbors, friends — the whole village was there and they offered us
everything, whatever they had (milk, cheese, embroidery), in general
thanks for what we had given one of their people.”
---
http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_ell_100007_13/01/
2005_51704
Greeks took in 12,000 Serb children
STAVROS TZIMAS
More than 12,000 children from war-ravaged Yugoslavia came to Greece in
1992-1995, when slaughter was raging in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They were
all Serbs, even though Muslim and Croat children were suffering as much
or worse from the horrors of war.
Ordinary Greeks who offered hospitality to those children should not be
criticized for bias. The Greek line then was Greece-Serbia-Orthodoxy,
and it governed humanitarian initiatives. This does not diminish the
help given to those children by Greek families and agencies such as
KEDKE, the Church of Greece and Solidarity Caravan.
The combat has ceased in the former Yugoslavia, but the drama of
orphaned children goes on. Many of them live in institutions, in poor
conditions and without hope of anything better. Others roam the streets
of Belgrade, Serajevo and Zagreb, begging or picking pockets to eke out
a living.
Some luckier ones, like Lazar Mentarovic, survive thanks to the
humanity of families in Greece, which continue to offer them moral and
financial support in their country.