Prijatelji

All the girls at Spittal - a displaced persons camp in Austria.

 This photograph was taken at Spittal - a displaced persons camp in Austria.

These women were refugees in a post World War II world with nothing to their name, left to the mercy of aid organizations. Yet, they are smiling. They are happy to be together, happy to have a future (though scarily unknown) and happy to have each other.

My grandma, Anica is one of these women and so is my Grandpa’s sister, Angela. Angela and Anica were friends before my grandparents had met, fallen in love and married. They were friends and had no idea that they would become sisters-in-law in just a few long years. They were just two among a whole group, a band of sisters of sorts that joined together in a time of need and became everything to each other. 

The boys behind them (top left) made the girls laugh.
They made the boys leave so they could retake the photo.

Their friendships grew out of a commitment to survival made to each other. They bonded together over the hardships and toil of everyday refugee life. They shared everything in order to survive - pooling resources and providing slivers of stability in a world where they had very little control over their own future. These women all left family and loved ones behind in Slovenia - a place they had never dreamed of leaving. 

From Left: Slava, Anica, Heda, Danka, Mida, Slava and Angela 

Over recent years my Grandma’s eyesight has failed her and she can no longer see the photograph outside of her mind’s eye. Her eyes cannot identify who is who nor can she recognize herself in the tiny, old, fragile photos. 

Thanks to the modern miracles of technology I was able to scan and enlarge this very special photo and brought it for for my grandma on my last visit. Actually, I brought six copies of the enlarged photo; one for my grandma and one for each of the five women still alive from the photo. 

They are still her friends - 67 years later. They all attend the same Slovenian Church that they have gone to since they arrived in Canada back in 1952. They have attended each other’s weddings, celebrated the arrivals of new children and later mourned the death of each of their friends until there were just 6 left. 

My Grandma stared at the photo, seeing her twenty years old self looking back in sepia tone for the first time in years. Sporadically a story from my Grandma’s memory would be coaxed out by something or someone she saw in the photo and she would tell me a story about one of the women - stories of when they were all just refugee girls. Or she would turn to my grandpa and tell him a story in Slovene and they would both laugh - sharing a moment of their past together in the language that still comes so naturally to them. 

Modelling their new winter coats donated by UNRA
Danka, Angela, Anica and Slava

These women came to Canada together, they came to Toronto together, they roomed together, they worked together. They shared rent, shared meals, shared beds, shared dreams. They shared in each other’s lives. Of course in this photo none of them knew that yet - they were just girls and teenagers hoping for a better future than their past and present.  Smiling because they had each other. 

                                                                                   A nod to the beauty and power of friendship.