Vrbovec

= CEDO, MY DARLING =

The dramatic life story of Milan Herzog
//Note to the reader -

The idea of writing Milan's life story was inspired by a short video made in 1998 to celebrate Milan’s 90th birthday. It narrated and showed some of the highlights of his life. Much of the material was gathered by then teenager, Anne Collins, who was not only a close neighbor but is also a surrogate granddaughter. Anne used the ruse that she was collecting information for a school project.//

//Material for the story in its present form has been gathered from several sources, but the majority from a text originally written in Dutch (Flemish) by a close friend, Cas Goossens, who is a well known media personality and author in Belgium. He spent many hours interviewing Milan. It was translated into English by Hans Harmen Smet.//

//The story begins in the small village of Vrbovec, Croatia, where Milan was born….//

= Chapter 1 = = Beginnings in Vrbovec =

Vrbovec is a small Croatian village forty kilometres northwest of Zagreb. I have idyllic memories of an early childhood spent in this rural spot. When I visited it in 1982 with Shanta, I was stunned to see that it had grown into a small town.

In my early youth, Vrbovec was a sleepy village surrounded by fields, meadows and woods. It probably had about a thousand inhabitants. People enjoyed a quiet life. There was only one doctor, and he was in charge of public health. Most villagers were farmers who worked hard during the week and went to church on Sunday. Vrbovec was predominantly Catholic, like most of Croatia. There wasn’t much going on in the village. There was a single inn but no hotel, no cinema and no theatre, sports field or library. The little village school had only two rooms for the first four grades and the headmaster was one of the two teachers teaching the children.

In the school, they taught the youngsters how to read, write and count, and the basics they needed to know about farming and breeding cattle. At a later stage, history and geography were added as subjects. A couple of hours a week a lady taught third year pupils German, including the Gothic script. We all had to learn German because in those days Croatia was part of the Austro -Hungarian Empire.

Most children helped their parents in the fields and came to school barefooted, except in winter. They were eager to learn though, and made a remarkable effort, because their parents believed a child had to study hard in order to get on in the world. The smartest boy in my class was an orphan, who against all odds managed to go to university.

There were three significant landmarks in the village. The first was a large ruined fortified “burg” of the Zrnjski Family – the feudal lords and Croatian leaders of the Middle Ages. The Zrnjski days of glory ended after the Turkish defeat in Central Europe, and the waning importance of the under the Hapsburg rule. Except for the main building, the “burg” gradually succumbed to the ravages of weather and neglect. When Count Dampierre, the French Ambassador at the Court of Maria Theresa, received the “burg” as a gift in the 1840s, he build a castle there, Dampierre Castle, and new life was breathed into the complex.

The second landmark was the railroad station, with its large water tower supplying water for steam locomotives.

The third landmark was the church with its beautiful park.

For me, however, the most important place was our home, built many hundreds of years earlier. It consisted of two sections– on one side was the large saw mill, owned and run by my grandfather, and on the other side was our home where my grandmother reigned supreme. As a child, I had very little contact with the mill because children were not allowed there as it was dangerous because the saws were operating all the time. At home, Grandmother oversaw the people who worked running the house, the kitchen, the laundry, the stables, the garden and fields, where we grew corn, other vegetables and had a small vineyard.

Grandmother was particularly proud of the front part of the main house which was more elegant and newer than the rest. She often hosted passing dignitaries such as the Governor or the Bishop. On these occasions she would uncover the antique furniture in the salon and put out the silverware and the fine Meisen china for an elegant meal.

These were the only occasions when I actually saw the historic furniture and china. Sometimes, I would be invited to participate when dessert was served.

My grandfather was a prominent figure in the village. His name was Svarec and he was from a well-known and well-respected family which, in the distant past, had left Herzegovina for Vrbovec in order to escape the Turks. My family had been in charge of the sawmill for generations. My grandfather was the last one to do so.

I have a childhood memory of my grandfather once taking me out on his horse which he used to ride every morning. Stopping at the crest of a hill, he pointed out the entire estate and told me to take a good look since one day it would all belong to me.

My grandfather was always excited about the future and the new inventions that he used to hear about. He was always looking for new “gadgets”. He was among the early users of a steam engine to run the saws at the sawmill.

I remember the day grandfather came home from a trip very excited about the idea he had for bringing light into the house. We were then reading with petroleum lamps and candlelight; there was no electricity in our area. Grandfather found out that he could have the same kind of lights that were used to light the street lamps in Zagreb and that the whole house could be lit at the same time. He could do this by importing bags of a substance called acetylene, which created gas when wet.

He designed two very large containers, closed on one side, and opened on the other. One container fit into the other. Acetylene was put into the bottom container and water poured over it. Then the second container was put over the first and the gas lifted the second container up and the weight of the upper, second container created pressure which pushed the gas through the pipes. The pipes ran all through the house and fed the gas into the special light fixtures. Lighting the dark created major changes in our lives, especially for grandmother and myself because now we had bright light and could easily read late into the night. It also facilitated other chores of the house. As part of the introduction of gas, we acquired a very decorative chandelier for the salon.

My grandfather was probably more interested in inventions, people and politics than in running the sawmill. In truth it was my grandmother who was in charge of the business. She was the true head of the family.

My grandmother was a remarkable woman with a strong will, a lot of common sense and a sharp intellect. She was always in control, whatever the situation though she had never been to school. She came from Beltinci, a Slovenian village not far from the Hungarian border, where her father took travellers in his ferryboat across the wild river Mura. My grandfather had met her on the ferry. He travelled quite frequently and occasionally had to cross the river, and at some point was introduced to the ferryman’s daughter. Because there was no school in Beltinci, and the nearest school was too far off to send a child, my grandmother had been taught at home by her own mother. Her mother taught her Slovenian and how to read, write, and speak German. She eventually polished her original “//kuchendeutsch//” and learned to speak the more literary German as was spoken at the imperial court in Vienna.

My grandmother read a lot including up to three newspapers a day – a Croatian daily, a Viennese publication and a German magazine – which was exceptional for a woman of that time and place. She was a voracious reader and ordered me all sorts of interesting books and magazines throughout my younger days. She played an extremely important part in my education. I remember her as a woman force and authority.

She also showed great courage. When my grandfather was arrested for his nationalist activities, she freed him personally. She headed up to the local prison and joining forces with a couple of villagers, they managed to free him via the roof. The local police, quite by coincidence, were looking the other way.

And now about my mother—Anka. She was the younger of two sisters and was of a completely different nature than her mother. She did not enjoy being in the limelight at all. She was very pretty, yet a little shy. She preferred a quiet life, nothing out of the ordinary. She always remained this quiet, timid, tender woman, who was satisfied with the simple things at home, with her family. Embroidery was one of her favourite, quiet occupations. She liked reading too. She had enjoyed a good, traditional upbringing: elementary education at the village school and secondary education at the Zagreb Lycee. In Zagreb she continued her friendship with the Dampierre children, descendants of the former French ambassadors to the Austrian Court of the Empress Maria Theresa. This was the family that owned an estate in Vrbovec including the castle. My mother, however, did not feel at ease in higher circle or at fashionable gatherings.

My mother had grown up in the shadow of Ivka, her older sister. Ivka was very outgoing, dominant and high-spirited. She was a fashionable woman, a woman of the world. When I was a child, my aunt lived in Vienna, where she became a famous singer of the classic German //Lieder//. “Teta Ivka”, as we called her, was interested in music since her childhood. She had clearly inherited my grandfather’s talent for music. He played the accordion and sang beautifully at every party. She was married to Shandor Shay, a Austrian who worked for a German film projector manufacturer Ernemann. We often went to visit her in Vienna and I have very fond memories of these trips. They are one of the highlights of my youth.

Life was exciting in Vienna. The city attracted everything and everyone. Teta Ivka took us everywhere. We went to the Stephansdom in the Alstadt, we visited Hofburg and Schönbrunn, we listened to the Wiener Philharmoniker, we went to the Staatsoper and the Burg theatre, the Volksoper and the Theater an der “Wien”. We walked around the Albertina and other museums where we looked at Breughel and Dürer, we admired the ornate Golden Fleece at the Schatzkammer. We went to the Prater which is like an amusement park and rode on the Ferris wheel which was the first of its kind in Europe. We visited all the landmarks of the Imperial Capital, including what was then one of the great zoos of Europe. Later I was kidded about how I was crying and refused to leave the zoo, because I had not seen the emperor. To my mind, the Emperor was so important I thought he must live in the zoo.

I was not only a curious child but also very talkative. I remember once at Uncle Shandor’s home, while the grown ups were having tea with friends, I seem to have been talking too much and Uncle Shandor turned to me and offered me a large silver coin (a Maria-Theresa thalier) saying, “I’ll give you this if you keep quiet for 5 minutes”. He returned to the table and at first I played with the coin, but a moment later I went to him and gave it back saying -- “you can keep quiet”. I was about 4 years old. They did not let me forget this incident for many years.

Did my father ever accompany us to Vienna? I am not sure. I can not remember my father. He died of an infectious illness in 1910, when I was only two years old. All I know about him, is what my grandmother and mother have told me.

My father’s name was Leopold, or Lavoslav in Croation. He belonged to a Slavonian family of bakers in Vukovar. Slavonia is east of Zagreb and is famous for its oak trees, which Grandfather used in his saw mill. My father studied business planning. My grandfather met him by coincidence on one of his trips and invited him to his house. This is where my father met my mother. Their marital bliss was short-lived. He died when I was 2 years old and I was their only child.

Because my father travelled on business, we had moved into a couple of rooms on the estate. This way my mother would not be alone. After my father’s death, we continued living there. I don’t think I was ever saddened by this loss. I was too young when he died and there was too much to discover out there in the big world of small Vrbovec.

Almost across the street from our old house, there was a lumber yard, mainly selling the cut wood from our sawmill for furniture. It was run by the Fuerst family. Two boys, one a year younger and the other a year older than myself, were my regular play mates. We shared many events like Christmas. I had less time to play than the boys because I liked to read.

The children of Vrbovec had simple toys. On Sundays when the saw mill was not working, my buddies and I went and picked up the leftover pieces of wood and built a whole fantasy world. My buddies were the boys next door, Veljko and Milo Fuerst. Sometimes we reconstructed our village with sawmill leftovers, at other times we pretended to be Indians chasing the Turks with wooden spears. Veljko and Milo were my best friends, apart from the blacksmith’s daughter, who preferred to play with me because the Fuerst boys were too wild for her liking and she thought I was gentler.

Now and then I also wanted to be by myself. Occasionally, when I heard the headmaster play the organ, I would sneak into the church. One time the headmaster had noticed my presence and invited me to try the organ myself. Over time he taught me music, and music became a passion. My grandfather took care of the rest. Without me knowing it, he ordered a piano to be sent from Vienna. I have never received a present that played such an important part in my development; I became addicted to music and to this day remain enchanted by it.

Now and again a touring theatre group would pass through Vrbovec. One time I was allowed to go and see them. They were showing something very special. Flickering, jerky images of the wreck of the Titanic appeared from the “magic lantern” - the first type of hand operated movie projector. I was only five years old, but I was mesmerised. I have been hooked on film ever since.

Vrbovec itself had another attraction: the railway station. Our village was an important part of the European railroad network. It was said that the village had the cleanest water source – from a spring. The Orient Express made a stop here on its long journey between Paris and Istanbul to stock up on fresh water. For days on end my friends and I would sit on the wall and watch all the activities unfold as trains arrived and left the station. We kept an eye on the freight train cargos and after the start of WW1, we were particularily fascinated by military transport. We had noticed that ceaseless convoys of armoured vehicles and cannons pass through the station and it was part of our games to count the guns. They were like toys to us. How could we have known that these cannons were going to set the world on fire with their deadly ammunition?

Of course Vrbovec looks very different now from the beginning of the previous century when I was born there. The entire Balkans have changed beyond recognition since then.

In 1908, when I was born, Croatia was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, popularly known as the “Hapsburg Empire” which was on its last legs. The emperor, Franz Josef, who ruled from Vienna experienced great difficulties in trying to keep together a conglomeration of very diverse countries, peoples and languages. Croatia was ruled by a Croatian governor named Ban. As in most areas of the vast Empire, the Croatians had their own nationalist movement, striving for more independence and co-operation with other Southern Slav people. My grandfather was involved in this movement and went to prison for it.

Apparently I was a spirited little boy. When I was five or six years old, my grandfather gave me the honourable task of picking up a letter from the village post office, which was at the bottom of the hill. I was as proud as a peacock for being given such responsibility. I set off unwaveringly, at a brisk pace. On my way to the post office a blond horseman on a beautiful steed started riding next to me. The horseman was a Croatian officer wearing a glittering uniform with a multitude of shiny buttons and an impressive cap. He started making friendly conversation. He asked me where I was from and what I was doing here all by myself. It turned out we both had the same assignment: to collect a letter from the post office. The horseman lifted me on his horse and took me home after we had picked up the letters. I was so happy and so glad that I wanted to stay with the horseman on that beautiful steed forever. I blushed out of sheer bliss and said impulsively: “You should marry my mother”. The horseman smiled and back home he told my grandfather, grandmother and mother the story. They thought it was a wonderful joke. The officer seemed in no hurry at all to leave, and he stayed for a good chat. My mother was happy to join the conversation too. I was sitting on her lap, beaming. When the horseman said goodbye, my grandfather told him to come back, for his company had been most enjoyable. The horseman agreed and did come back. Indeed, he returned on several occasions, and every time his conversations with my mother would be longer. She seemed to have lost some of her quiet shyness. After a while they decided to marry. And that is how Anton Iskra became my stepfather on the eve of the First World War

At this time Anton Iskra was in the military doing his required term of duty. He had trained to become a botanist. He had been married once before and was the father of one girl. He was a highly educated and well-travelled man. Together with his first wife, he had left for America, where he had worked as a journalist for the local Croat papers in Chicago and New York. Their daughter Jelka was born In New York in 1908, the same age as me. Shortly after Jelka’s birth, her mother became ill with tuberculosis. The doctors advised Anton to take her back to Croatia. He moved with his family to Zagreb. But it was too late for his wife to be cured. She died shortly after. Anton entrusted his daughter in the hands of two unmarried aunts who lived in Krizevac, less than five kilometres from Vrbovec. Krizevac was known in the area for its excellent schools. Jelka went to school there for some time.

Jelka and I got on very well. After the difficulties during the wartime, Jelka joined our family in Zagreb in 1918, where she attended the lycee school for two years. Afterwards she returned to Krizevac and our life took different paths. In fact, Jelka had been claimed by her two spinster aunts, who after many heated discussions with her father, referred to some sort of right of ownership and took her away from us. I stayed in Zagreb and lost touch with Jelka. Many years later I was told that she had married a notorious fascist who, for some time, was part of the Croatian government which collaborated with Nazi Germany. He was in charge of the police force and committed many cruelties, during the Second World War He was hanged mercilessly by the Communists in 1945.

I hadn’t heard from Jelka for years when that happened. I had been living in the United States for almost ten years – it must have been 1949 – when I suddenly received a phone call from Jelka. She asked me to help her acquire a certified copy of her American birth certificate. She had indeed been registered with the New York Registry Office in 1908. I succeeded in delivering her the papers she needed in order to complete her immigration form. In 1950 she arrived in the States with her son. I met her one time afterwards, but we did not stay in touch. We met briefly around 1980, shortly before her death in Washington. Her son went into politics, was a candidate for the Democrats in Colorado and made an unsuccessful bid for Senator in his home state.

There was another Iskra girl that crossed my path. In 1921 my mother gave birth to a baby daughter, who was baptised Vera. I thus had a half sister who was thirteen years my junior. I adored her as much as she adored me. She called me //Bato//, which means brother and father at the same time. I got on very well with Vera, but unfortunately she died young. She was barely twenty years old and still studying at university when she died in Belgrade during that tough, first year of the Second World War

But I must go back to the First World War which completely changed our life. My stepfather, Anton Iskra, was called up before he married my mother and was sent to the Italian front in 1914. I don’t think he defended the Hapsburg Monarchy with great conviction, for he was convinced from the very beginning that Austria would lose the war.

The Italian front was not that far removed from Vrbovec. On a quiet night we could hear the roaring cannons in the distance, but for the time being our village was safe from violence or destruction. The people of Vrbovec tried to survive as best as possible.

We had to make do with limited means. With the railroad taken over by the army, there was hardly any contact with the outside world.. All regular connection had been suspended and supplies were no longer brought in from other places. Our small community relied on itself for all its basic needs. People ate what they could grow or breed. I remember a German rhyme that perfectly illustrates how our people felt and how they fed themselves at the time, “//Wir essen immer Wrucken, dass sie uns im Magen drücken”.//

Kohlrabies and turnips dominated our diet to such an extent that it made us sick. There was no variation. There was also a lack of salt, sugar and oils. It was impossible to get tobacco, and inveterate smokers were so desperate they licked the nicotine off their empty pipes.

My grandparents bred pigs and fowl and they owned four cows which provided ample supplies of milk and meat. Perishable food pickled or not, was kept in a deep cellar. Large blocks of ice were wrapped in straw and stored in tunnels dug deep in the ground. My grandparents tried to help their workers to make a living and survive the hard times. For instance every Sunday, after high mass, my grandmother prepared a milk loaf or something else for the workers’ families.

Production at the sawmill was greatly reduced due to lack of demand as well as a shortage of manpower. My stepfather, Captain Anton Iskra, tried to visit the house as much as he could -- which was not very often -- to check on us. Towards the end of the war, when it had become obvious that the Austrians were not going to win, my stepfather brought my mother and me to safety in Zagreb. It turned out to be a wise precaution. Only a few months later, the break away gangs of the withdrawing German //Grüne Kader// bombarded and ransacked Vrbovec. The house and sawmill burned down.

It was only one day after the ransacking that my stepfather and his company of Croatian soldiers returned from the front. Had he arrived one day earlier, he would have been able go to Vrbovec and to stop the madmen of the Grüne Kader. Unfortunately he was too late. Both our home and the sawmill had been destroyed. It was the shear malice of frustrated soldiers venting their bottled-up fury. My grandparents had looked helplessly on with sorrow while the centuries-old family property was razed. They survived the attack and, with the help of their neighbours, salvaged whatever they could. Then, since there was nothing left, they too moved to Zagreb.

When the house came down, some of my grandmother’s priceless furniture was saved under the collapsed roof. Later, when my mother had very little income, she survived by selling some of these museum quality pieces.

For me this also was the definite end of a wonderful time I had spent at Vrbovec as a boy. I had been a good boy and bad boy at the same time. I faithfully attended mass with my mother and grandparents every Sunday. I said my morning and evening prayers with equal loyalty and thanked the lord for food and drink before every meal. And I tried to show Christian charity just like my family of deeply devoted Catholics. But I was also a rascal, just like all of my buddies.

I started reading at a young age and I had the unstoppable urge to put my heroes’ adventures into practice, which eventually lead up to tumbling down a roof. Which I did, on a sled! I cannot remember why exactly the idea occurred to me, but somehow I came to the conclusion that by using the roof of the stable as a launching pad, my sled would gather enough momentum so that I could land on the ground and go farther away. I can’t remember how I got my sled to the ridge of the roof. What instantly comes to mind though, is how I ended up on the ground, I can assure you it did me no good.

I paid for it considerably, as I did also for blowing up my small steam engine fuelled by methylated spirit. Except for its size, this toy was no different from the engines we observed at Vrbovec station. My grandfather had given me this engine as a birthday present. My friends and I loved experimenting and we had often wondered what would happen to the heated water inside the engine if we blocked the exhaust. The engine reacted more fiercely than we anticipated and the whole garden house came close to exploding.

These games were over now. The First World War shot my childhood years to pieces. Vrbovec became part of the past. I was in Zagreb when World War I ended and the armistice was signed.