Mom's Trip Down Memory Lane Part I: Croatia

Warning - these are my wordiest posts yet! I wanted to give some stories of the funny things that happened along the way and also as much history as I could to tie all the places we saw together. So bear with me....

Mom and I flew into Venice, Italy on Sunday May 16th. To back up a little, David and Sandy had left the previous Wednesday after arriving in Europe and headed into Italy. They stopped half way down in the B&B we stayed at in Levanto two weeks earlier, but arrived too late to enjoy the sea or the surrounding area. On Thursday they headed down to Rome. When they were a couple hours away, David noticed the battery light had come on. He knew it was probably the alternator, but decided to try and milk the car and make it to Rome, where they could have the car fixed while they toured the city on Friday and Saturday. They almost made it and the car finally died about 20 minutes out of town. They were so thankful to be able to coast to one of the little aid boxes along the toll road. They called for help and in just minutes a patrol car came upon them. He spoke not a word of English, but David used the universal word of 'kaput!' and he knew to call for a tow truck. The tow truck driver also didn't speak a word of English. He had them stay in the car while he loaded it onto the flat bed, then proceeded to drive to a garage with the car loaded, David and Sandy still in the front seats! We had a really good laugh when David shared how silly they felt going down the highway in their car perched on the tow truck. Only in Italy! Thankfully, they were able to get a taxi to their B&B in Rome where the owners then helped them talk to the garage the following day and get the car fixed. Not bad for some tourists who know not a word of Italian!

So, back to Sunday. Mom and I arrived in Venice almost an hour late. I was worried that we would have trouble finding David and Sandy since we were so late. We looked around outside but didn't see them and I decided we would stay put and hope they came back to the airport entrance since roaming the parking lot would not help. Meanwhile, I had to use the restroom. So I went to the closest one and walked in. I waited while the person in front of me went into the 2nd stall and patiently waited for the 1st stall to be vacated. After a minute or so, the door of the 1st stall opens, and it was Sandy! We laughed so hard and we were glad to have found each other so quickly!

Sunday night we drove into Croatia and to our hotel in Zagreb. Along the way we needed to stop and get gas and a vignette, a little sticker for the toll roads in Croatia. So David took Sandy in to be his translator to pay for the gas. After paying for the gas, etc, Sandy said 'hvala' or thank you and the man responded in kind. David decided to try out the few words he knows and said 'hvala bogu', or thank God. See, the only Serbian David knows is the church phrases he's so used to hearing over and over. The words kind of went together in his mind like peanut butter or cream cheese. As soon as they walked out the door, Sandy looked at David and said "Do you know you just told him 'Thank God'?!" We all had a good laugh at his expense. I will say that David always tried to at least say the minimum greetings and thanks in every language we encountered, but he managed to remember to only say 'hvala' after that!

Monday we drove across Croatia to Vinkovci, the town where my Mom's parents, Grandma and Grandpa Webel, were married and lived for a short time (1933-1935). Grandpa's parents lived in Vinkovci as well. At that time, there were quite a few Germans who lived in the neighboring countries like Yugoslavia and Poland and France.

This is Mom at the Vinkovci sign entering town. We stopped and took pictures at each sign as we entered the towns that she lived in.


During WWII, most of the Germans were recalled back to Germany to help to serve in the war and also for them to control and imprison any they deemed not part of the cause for spiritual, political, ethnic or other reasons. It was here in Vinkovci at the train station that Mom was loaded along with her 4 younger siblings and Grandma on cattle cars to be taken to a holding camp in Germany in the fall of 1944. Grandpa and Reini were not loaded at the same time as they were away doing business for the store. They were loaded north of the station in the fields and this is where Grandma had to bribe the guards and crawl under the trains and through the fields to go back into town and find Grandpa and Reini to tell them they had been taken.

Here's Mom at the platform, they were loaded just north of the station.

Since we didn't have an address of where they lived in Vinkovci, we only stopped at the train station and then headed to Marinci, a very small town where Mom and 5 of her younger siblings were born (Reini is the oldest and was born in Vinkovci).

Mom at the entrance to Marinci.


As we were entering town, Mom was telling us what she remembered. Not 30 seconds after she said 'There should be a graveyard on the right hand side, on a little hill' and we saw it, exactly as she described. This was a significant place because while they lived in Marinci, Mom's baby sister, Hilda, the twin of Uncle Robert, died when she was less than 4 months old and was buried here in Sept 1943. Mom remembered the funeral procession to the cemetary.

We looked through many of the older grave markers but were unable to find her exact grave site. Mom isn't even sure they paid for a stone grave marker and so a wood one would be long gone.

It was also terrible weather - rainy and very cold, so we didn't want to be outside very long.


Here Mom is telling us about walking up to the graveyard from their house, just down the road on the right for the funeral.

Down the hill before the corner was the house that Grandpa built that they lived in for a few years. Also on the right hand side, close to their house was the school that Mom and the older siblings attended.

We drove down the road, but Mom just couldn't recognize any of the houses as being where they lived. She did, however, recognize this house. This is the first house they lived in at Marinci, and Grandpa had his store in the front, just as now there is a bakery in the front. Mom knew that it was the right place because of the angled doorway and the location, as the house has changed over the last 60+ years. Mom was born in this house in April 1936. Karl and Adolf were born in this house as well, and Mom remembers Theresa and Robert and Hilda being born in the other house in Marinci.

We took a few pictures outside, then decided we had better go inside and explain what we were doing. We hoped to find someone who could help us figure out where the other house they lived in was, along with information on Hilda's gravesite.

This is Sandy translating to Rosana, a worker at the bakery, what we were doing there and the questions we had. By the way, it was the perfect compilation of people on this trip. Mom had the memories, David did all the research, I had the car (I know, what an important addition I had), and Sandy was our Serbian translator. We really couldn't have done it without her. Mom's Serbian is just not fluent enough to give the details of the questions we had, and Sandy did a terrific job translating.

Rosana was also amazing. She immediately took an interest in what we were asking and wanted to help us find answers. She took us to a youth center where she also works and called some elderly citizens of Marinci to come and talk to us.

The first woman who came was Zlata, the older woman on the right. She remembered the Webel family and in fact, remembered playing with Mom's brother Reini, who she called Reinika (like calling John, Johnny). It was so exciting to have someone who remembered their family and knew the town history. She was not clear on the other house location, but we did find out through Rosana that most of the older grave markers were destroyed and knocked down during the Serbian Croatian war in the 90's. So there was no way that Hilda's marker would have survived if she had one.

The other person who came who remembered the most was Vladimir, the older man sitting next to Zlata. He remembered Grandpa and the store. He had a great sense of humor and a sharp mind for his 85+ years. He confirmed that Grandpa's store was indeed at the bakery location and that the other house they lived in was down the road where Mom remembered, as was the school. Unfortunately, the house and the school had been destroyed in the Serbian Croatian War as well, and completely demolished a few years back. As they told us about the War, we realized that most of the homes in this area were destroyed completely and had to be rebuilt. It was a terrible time and this location had some of the worst fighting and destruction. Rosana told us stories of fleeing to Vinkovci and hiding under a staircase with her children with their feather bed over their heads for protection.

Mom had brought pictures of the family and the family history story that Uncle Dan had transcribed and printed.

This was a great stop, thanks to Rosana. She was able to call together the right people to answer Mom's questions and verify her memory. We were sad that the other house and school were gone, but thankful we were able to find the store and also the graveyard, even if we didn't find Hilda's exact grave site. The other gentleman in the group pictures who was standing was also very kind. He drove with us back to Vinkovci to try and help us find Grandpa Webel's father's gravesite. Unfortunately, we hit a dead end there as well. He took us into the place where they keep the records, but there were none with the Webel name in the town. We saw one of the graveyards, but have no way to know where he might be buried.

I hope I'm getting all the history details right on this! If there is something I have missed or needs correction, please let me know. I'm not a good journaler, so most of this is coming from memory, which isn't so good at times! More posts on the Memory Lane journey to come...