On Rijeka, Mrzle Vodica, and Family Roots

After exiting the ferry in the crisp early morning, I stepped out to get a taste of Rijeka.  I bought some fresh strawberries from the market but my luggage didn't allow me to do much else so I returned to the ferry port for a taxi.

The harbor at Rijeka

The taxi drove me to the home of my great-grandmother's 95-year-old brother Josip and his wife Anka, who were already out on their porch when I arrived.  It was a beautiful, cheek-kissing meeting of long lost family.  Josip and Anka don't speak English, but we were able to get by with a mix of Croatian, Italian, and copious hand-gesturing.  I had only informed them that I would be visiting the day before,when I asked a woman in Split to help me call their home and tell them that "Victor's granddaughter" was coming to Rijeka the next morning.

Josip is the kindest, gentlest old man imaginable,and he still works for a few hours every day.  Anka is the more exuberant of the two and shows her generosity through the Eastern European art of "feeding the guest."  (I had hardly eaten in Split, so I was ready for a home-cooked meal!)  They had already prepared a room for me to sleep in, and were surprised to learn that I was only staying for one night.  Before lunch, Josip cracked out the rakija, and I finally tasted the "firewater" I had heard so much about... it's strong stuff.  (For some reason I always drink the hardest liquor with my nonagenarian relatives).  I napped shortly after we finished eating, and I blame as much on the rakija as I do on the uncomfortable overnight ferry.

Anka, me, Josip

Rijeka from Josip's balcony

Yugo-nostalgia
(Like his sister Marija, Josip also aided the partisans during the second world war.  Tito's memory is very respected in this house).

That afternoon, my cousin Andrea brought Anka and me to Mrzle Vodica, the place that once was my great-grandmother's village and is now entirely immersed underwater.  The lake is quite beautiful, but it's strange and sad to think about the village; not all of the memories below those waters are happy ones.  The Nazis occupying Croatia during World War II demanded that Josip's father (my great-great-grandfather) give up his land; he turned his back on them and was shot.  He died in front of the house, in front of his children.  (And this happened after the family was incarcerated by fascist Italians in Gonars concentration camp).  At any rate, it was a weighty experience for me to visit the site of the stories I heard from my grandfather during my childhood.

I stayed the night in Riejka but had to catch an early taxi to the bus station the following morning, to meet and reunite with other family members in Ljubljana.  More on that will come soon.

In Croatian, "Mrzle Vodica" literally means "frozen water." The village where my great-grandmother, Josip, Marija, and their other siblings were born and raised no longer exists, having been converted into a man-made lake after World War II.

At Mrzle Vodica: my ancestral shores