Marija Šimić

* 1942

  • And when that composition arrived in Zagreb faster, faster outside, I guess they pushed them while so many rags hung from me that she couldn’t wrap me. And when my mother came out with a backpack on her back, with me, those rags hanging from me, one reporter from that newspaper, “protection” was called that newspaper, I guess was interested by the picture and he took a picture of my mother with me. But there were no names or surnames, only mother and child were written below. On that sheet. The NDH also had this red cross at the time, and all those who arrived at the camp were accommodated in the Red Cross shelter. And they left me and my mom at the train station. I was reportedly normally both wet and hungry and crying. And then she asked, how come everyone who came with that composition was accommodated in the Red Cross shelter, why didn’t they accommodate her, that she couldn’t be there at the station on a bench with a small child. “Someone from outside is interested in you.” Because her schoolmate, they sat together in elementary school. And they were rich, from a rich family, and my mom was from a poor family, they were cultivating the land, raising cattle. And then they changed, my mom brought her hazelnuts, walnuts, dried apples and this Dorica who was sitting with her she brought her candy, cakes, and so it was an exchange of goods. When, they had a sawmill in Prezid, a big house, a big barn, they had their cook, their nurse, then they had hosts who arranged the environment, fed the cattle. And now my mother, through the Red Cross, she found out that my mother came to Zagreb with her child. And then she announced that we should not be accommodated, that she would come pick us up. And so it was, that we came to the house from that Vilhar’s Dorica.

  • Let’s say my mom had to wash, wash from me, not diapers but rags. And she made these rags from her grandfather’s undershirt, each sleeve was a diaper and then the front and back. And when she washed it for the first time, she went to see if my diapers were dry, there were no more of those cloths. And what now, they somehow got it, they probably had something else with them, that my mother never hung from me again when she changed my clothes, but she put one cloth under her back and the other under her grandmother’s back so that those rags dried under them, because that was the safest way not to be left without those rags. And when they were, when they were lying on those rags, when they were dry, then she could wrap me up.

  • And then the news came to us, that Rab is full. Let them drive us directly to Gonars. And so we were lucky that we were not on Rab because it was worse than on Gonars. And when there were people, when Rab flooded, they transported people to Gonars. We lived in wooden huts and the beds were, bare planks, but we had beds. We also slept on the floor but there were planks on the ground, we didn’t on bare ground. And so the news came that we had been saved from Rab. And when the people from Rab came, I don’t remember, but my mother told me that everyone cried a lot, how hard it is for us in Gonars, and when the people came from Rab they said, well, wow, you live like at the hotel. Because we had a barrack, we had beds like that.

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    Delnice, 25.09.2021

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Marija Šimić: surviving Gonars as a baby, charity and help, the importance of love

Marija (Marica) Šimić
Marija (Marica) Šimić
zdroj: Eye direct recording

Marija Šimić was born in Prezid, on March 28, 1942. Her mother was originally from the region of Gorski Kotar, her father from Lika. Because of the Italian occupation, as a baby, she is taken to the Fascist concentration camp in Gonars, together with her mother and grandparents. After the capitulation of Italy, thanks to the help of a lady, Marija and her mother find shelter. After the end of the war, Marija completes her studies and become a teacher.