The Forgotten 500 (15 page)

Vujnovich did not believe the instructor, and his entreaties made him only more concerned, not less. In the early months of 1941 the dominoes fell quickly, and suddenly German troops were in Bulgaria, Romania, and Austria. Yugoslavia was next in line. As many knew would be inevitable, Yugoslavia went from peace to horror in just a few quick steps. Politicians in the country tried to keep Yugoslavia neutral as they saw Hitler advancing across Europe, but the task became more challenging with each of Hitler’s victories. Unable to compete militarily with Hitler’s forces, Yugoslavia faced two possibilities: Either bow before Hitler, or resist him, relying upon support from Western powers. The decision rested with Yugoslavia’s Prince Paul, who had taken leadership of the country in 1934, after King Alexander’s assassination in Marseille. Prince Paul was a forty-one-year-old cousin of the king and called on to rule the country because King Alexander’s son, Peter II, was only eleven years old. Prince Paul was pressured by his advisers to make a deal with Hitler in hopes of favorable treatment, and he eventually acquiesced, signing the Tripartite Pact with the World War II Axis Powers in Vienna on March 25, 1941. By signing the pact, Yugoslavia officially became part of the Axis along with Germany, Japan, and Italy. But the prince never intended to join the Axis aggression in Europe. Rather he was only trying to spare his country the barbarism he knew the Nazis would bring if the Yugoslavian people resisted.

The people of his country did not agree with the prince’s effort, preferring to face down the German invaders than join them, even in name only. Prince Paul’s decision prompted massive demonstrations in Belgrade and other cities. When the Axis Pact was revealed to the people, they protested in the streets, chanting, “
Belje rat; nego pakt
!” which meant “War instead of a pact; death instead of slavery.” Vujnovich and Lazic could see people marching in the streets around the university, shouting condemnations of the prince and showering flowers on the Serbian troops who had been sent to maintain order. The protesters made their intentions clear, that they supported the country’s army but not its appeasing prince.

Vujnovich watched as his bucolic student life was turned upside down. German-owned shops were destroyed, windows broken in the homes of German residents. Anyone with a German name was afraid to go out on the street. Vujnovich couldn’t believe what he was witnessing. He considered just leaving, heading home to Pittsburgh. He and his American friends thought it was fascinating to see these events unfolding in front of their eyes, but they didn’t feel it concerned them. They were Americans; this wasn’t their war. They just happened to be there witnessing the world change, and they could leave when they wanted.

But what about Mirjana? He had fallen madly in love with this local girl, and she would not be able to leave the country with her Yugoslav passport. Vujnovich’s American passport was a free ticket home, but he couldn’t bear to leave behind the blond beauty who had captured his heart from across the room at a party and occupied his thoughts for almost four years until he saw her again. So he stayed longer than he should have. Vujnovich was thinking about this at the club that evening when he again ran into Mueller, the assistant anatomy professor who had assured him the German invaders would be benevolent. The warning was more stern this time: “You can’t do that,” the man said, looking out on the broken shop fronts. “You people are going to suffer.”

Things kept moving so quickly that it was hard for Vujnovich to keep up with each day’s progress. Only two days after the pact was signed, on March 27, 1941, Peter II, now seventeen years old, was proclaimed of age and took the throne as King of Yugoslavia. He immediately supported a group of pro-English officers and middle-class politicians in executing a coup d’état on the same day, and Air Force General Dušan Simović became prime minister. Yugoslavia backed out of the Axis in all but name.

The new rulers opposed Germany, but like Prince Paul, they acknowledged the overwhelming power of the enemy. They feared that if Hitler attacked Yugoslavia, the United Kingdom, their strongest ally, was not in any real position to help. For the safety of the country, they declared that Yugoslavia would adhere to the Tripartite Pact.

Westerners praised Yugoslavia as an exception among the neighboring nations who had capitulated and accepted Hitler’s terms, congratulating the country’s people on standing up to resist the German hordes. But the West could offer little other than words of encouragement. The people of Yugoslavia were buoyed by the success of their uprising, but the joy would not last long. On the evening of April 5 Vujnovich was at the Anglo-American Club and ran into Mueller again. The German instructor’s mood was grim, as were the moods of most in the room despite the copious flow of alcohol.

“Something’s going to happen,” Mueller told Vujnovich. “Something bad. Please tell people not to do these things. Don’t provoke Germany.”

Vujnovich didn’t pay any attention to Mueller, chalking up the comments to the wine and a dour personality. He went home and went to bed, expecting to go to class the next day. Instead he woke up at six a.m. to his apartment building shaking and the sound of bombs falling. He raced to the window and threw back the curtains, squinting in the morning sun. He was stunned to see planes directly over the city, dropping bombs by the hundreds.

This American from the south side of Pittsburgh was watching Hitler’s response to the previous weeks’ events. When Hitler first heard of the coup d’état and the country’s attempt to withdraw from the Axis, he thought it was a joke. When he realized the people of Yugoslavia had defied his will, Hitler became infuriated at the country’s resistance and decided to destroy Yugoslavia, ordering his staff to carry out his orders “with unmerciful harshness.” The German
Luftwaffe
started by raining hell down on an unarmed, defenseless city. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill described what happened next:

The royal family escaped abroad. King Peter II went with his government to Greece, then to Jerusalem, the British Mandate of Palestine, and Cairo, Egypt, eventually landing in England in June 1941. There he joined numerous other governments in exile from Nazi-occupied Europe. The king completed his education at Cambridge University and joined the Royal Air Force. For the remainder of the war, Prince Paul and his family remained under house arrest by the British in South Africa.

 

 

 

When he could pull himself
away from the incredible sight at the window, Vujnovich raced down to the basement of the building in his pajamas, joining dozens of men, women, and children there. Everyone screamed and cried, the wails increasing with each bomb blast that shook the building. But in the chaos, there were elderly Serbian men who were calmly smoking their pipes and comforting the others, reassuring them, saying over and over, “Your time has not come. This will be over in a few minutes.” Their soothing manner calmed the crowd and Vujnovich realized these men probably had lived through several wars in their lifetimes. He was impressed by their demeanor, and used it to overcome his own terror. Once he was calmer, he decided he had to find his beloved Mirjana.

Vujnovich raced back up to his apartment, glad to see that the building had not yet taken a direct hit. Bombs continued falling all around the city, terrible explosions thundering and debris flying like rain in a summer storm. He put on some clothes and grabbed a few essentials; then he ran to Mirjana’s house about three miles away, praying the whole way that he would not find it a pile of rubble. Vujnovich ran as fast as he could, through crowds of panic-stricken people, no one seeming to know where to go or what to do. His heart was pumping wildly, his senses nearly overwhelmed by the sounds of bombs and people screaming, the smell of burning buildings and the sight of those who had been caught in the explosions. As he ran down a street and tried to stay close to the buildings for cover, Vujnovich witnessed a scene that would be burned into his memory for the rest of his life. As he ran, his eyes fell on a streetcar packed full of people, its driver moving as fast as he could and not stopping, presumably trying to get his passengers out of the city and to a safer place. Vujnovich’s eyes were on the streetcar when it took a direct hit from a falling bomb. The streetcar and the dozens of people inside exploded in a bloody mess of body parts and metal, limbs flying through the air and landing all around Vujnovich. He was momentarily stunned, not just by the explosion but by the terrible sight before him. As he regained himself, there was nothing he could do but to keep running.

About two hours after the bombing started, the planes disappeared and the explosions ceased. Vujnovich hoped the bombing was over, but this actually was just the lull between German bombing runs. Just as he got to Mirjanas’s house and was elated to see that her home was still standing, the bombs began to fall again. Vujnovich ran through the front door, shouting Mirjana’s name and looking quickly through the home. Then he went to the basement, where he hoped she would be hiding. He found Mirjana and her brother, Mirko, there, embraced them both and then huddled in a corner with them, all three terrified that a German bomb might end their lives at any moment. The home’s location on the outskirts of Belgrade, near the German embassy, kept the bombs from falling too closely, but they were still close enough.

When the bombing stopped again, the trio ran out of Mirjana’s house carrying several suitcases and headed down to the railroad station, hoping to get a train out of the city. Obviously Belgrade was paying for its resistance to Hitler, and they hoped they might be safer in the country. The group walked for a while and then caught a ride on an army truck, which Vujnovich instantly regretted as soon as he saw a German fighter plane come over the horizon. The planes were attacking anything on the road, particularly anything that looked military in nature, so it quickly swooped down on the truck and opened fire. Vujnovich, Mirjana, and Mirko were perched on the top of the truck, with nowhere to hide, so Vujnovich did his best to cover Mirjana with his own body as the plane strafed them. Through nothing but sheer luck, the large-caliber bullets passed them by, popping all around them and hitting the car behind the truck. Then the plane pulled away and went off in search of bigger targets.

After a few more miles, they were able to get on a train that had stopped in a small town. They rode that train for two days until they reached Herzeg Novi, a small village on the Adriatic Sea coast, located at the entrance to the Bay of Kotor and at the foot of Mount Orjen. They stayed there for fourteen days as the Germans continued their invasion.

As Belgrade was being bombed, German troops invaded Yugoslavia in the early morning of April 6, 1941, from several directions. The Yugoslav army tried to resist but was no match for the Nazi steamroller. On April 13, German troops entered Belgrade.

The little village of Herzeg Novi was filling up fast with refugees from Belgrade, all of them fleeing the bombing like George and Mirjana, and few of them with any plans for where to go. Mirjana ran into some of her friends from the university, and George met up with several other Americans. There was also a big contingent of British citizens, nearly seventy, many of them arriving in Rolls-Royces as they joined the evacuees fleeing as far west as they could get. The Rolls-Royces parked alongside all the beautiful Packards and other big sedans driven by the Americans, giving the village the look of a luxury resort for the wealthy. In reality, the town was overwhelmed, with refugees sleeping ten to a room and very little food to share. Everyone talked of their next move, how they would get out, how long they had before the Germans made their way into the countryside. For a few days there was talk of a British Navy cruiser that would come to the coastal village and take anyone who wanted to evacuate to Greece. There was still the question of how to get to the cruiser, however. It would be unable to dock in the coastal town, so boats would have to ferry the refugees out to it. Already people were fighting for the few fishing boats in the village, squabbling and arguing over who could pay the most. Vujnovich knew that if that cruiser appeared on the horizon, there would be a mad dash for those boats and people would die. He didn’t want to put Mirjana in that chaos.

Instead, he heard about a large sailboat in the town of Risan, which was about twelve miles farther inland. The boat could carry about thirty people out to the cruiser, so Vujnovich and a few of his friends quietly made their way to Risan when they heard the cruiser was coming. He paid for Mirjana and her brother to sail on the boat, knowing that his American passport would bring him opportunities later. They rode to Risan with nearly all of the British refugees, who were eager to be rescued by Her Majesty’s navy. As they boarded the sailboat for the first of several trips to the cruiser, the British citizens gave their car keys to Vujnovich, the only refugee in Risan who wasn’t planning to leave on the sailboat. He ended up holding keys for about thirty cars, including several Rolls-Royces and a number of Packards, and he could have done anything he wanted with them. No one was coming back for their cars. But ironically, Vujnovich didn’t know how to drive. He couldn’t get even one of the cars back to Herzeg Novi, and even if he did, there was nothing to do with it. So he turned to one of local villagers in Risan and gave him all the car keys before walking back to the coastal town.