The First War Refugee I've Met

Marina, in her Coach designer athletic shoes, color coordinated to her lanyard and her outfit is the best dressed custodian I have ever seen. I often wondered if she vowed during the Serbian war that she would always appreciate and give diligent care to her appearance, even if she empties garbage pails and mops hallways, the kind of activities not exactly intended by the shoe designers. I would have asked outright but I have to be clever and careful not startle Marina back into silence about her wartime experiences. When she speaks of it, her eyes quickly well up with tears, that I can tell she is fighting to hold on to. She tears up less if she just talks, but the questions bring the stinging emotions back too fast. It is a hard conversation for me too, I’m so curious yet I don’t want to bring up such discomfort so fast. I had never met someone so close to my age, 39,  that had to flee home and her country because of a war. And even before I met Marina, I was aware of what a horrific and violent war it was she had to escape. Seeing her, the person that I know is the farthest from the image in my mind of a war refugee.

I’ve worked with Marina for two years at the conference center for the Aurora Public Schools. The first day I met her, like a model from the pages of a glamor magazine, this tall, striking woman with flowing blond hair, spoke to me with an accent that was like exotic classical music. We were introduced, I as the new secretary in the building and she, to my surprise, the building custodian. My surprise must have been evident as she explained, “People are always shocked when they find out that I am the custodian here. I guess they think I am too clean or something... I don’t know.” I couldn’t help but look at her as if she was crazy. I wondered, “does she really think that?” But before I could finish that thought, she offers a mischievous smile and a wink. Marina’s snappy sense of humor has kept me laughing, we have not had any trouble understanding each other since that moment.

In that first day, as if she had routinely done it before, Marina begins to make clear who she is. She volunteered that her accent is Croatian and that she has lived in Denver for 10 years. As if she was telling her resume, she goes on to say that she has worked for Aurora Schools for four years and 6 years before that at the infamous Columbine High School. This brief information was the lede I needed to want to know more about the unique new co-worker I now have. She went on and proudly described her handsome and bright 16 year old son Alan before adding “oh yeah, and my husband.” Again with the smile and the wink.

During the course of our introduction, I learned she met her husband, from Bosnia, while working in Germany during the war in Croatia. There they were married, had Alan and thought that one day, they would be returning to Croatia. But the plan didn’t quite work out the way she had hoped and before Alan got too much older, they packed up and moved to Denver where they joined some members of her husband’s family.

Marina didn’t work at Columbine High School when the tragic shootings took place in 1999. But she was still greatly impacted by working at a site with that history. She tells how the kind of precautions highlighted on the evening news, that are now taken at public schools as a result of that tragic event, were never too much caution. She spoke of pride in her diligence to be hyper observant to the surroundings of the school campus. I only listened instead of asking questions when she would talk about how good she was at her job because she became so good at being so observant while at home in Croatia during the war. Her life depended upon knowing where everybody was.

The War

In 1991, Croatia declared independence as Yugoslavia was breaking apart following the death of the Yugoslavian president. With the help of the scattered Yugoslav armies, the Serbs, an angry repressed bunch from what became northern Croatia, set off to reclaim property they were being denied by committing horrendous atrocities against men women and not excluding children. The angry Serbs were raping any female of child rearing age and killing communities of people that weren’t Serbian.

As the word of Serbian movement neared her family’s community, Marina helped her parents evacuate the family. They had evacuated a couple of times and then returned home shortly after. A couple of times they fled home, they traveled by bus to neighboring communities to join family or friends, when they had adequate warning.  Once the threat was reported to have left the area by her home, they went back. But when the warnings didn’t arrive with enough time before the dark of night and before the Serbs, Marina and her family fled on foot away from the small serene town of home into the woods like savage children running away from the sunlight.

On an occasion that her son Alan visited her at work, he happened to mention in front of me a larger than normal bone protruding from Marina’s wrist. She appeared embarrassed yet she casually told “I broke it when we were running in the woods during the war, my father tried to set it for me using sticks.”  Alan exclaimed “She didn’t like running in the war, so that’s why she went to Germany.”

The point at which her family fled on foot into the woods, was when armed men went up on the hills around the town and opened fire on homes and anything that moved. Random shots would be fired yet the men lacked the organization to know where their fellow Serbs were and where the targets were in the hills after dark. Marina chuckles as she tells, “They didn’t know who they were shooting at and they were shooting their own men. We didn’t have weapons, that’s why we were running. But the Serbs, the dead Serbs were identified because they had guns.” Her family spent five weeks hiding in the woods. “To this day, I can’t stand the sight or smell of mushrooms. That’s all we lived on” she recalls.

The Heartbreak

Right before fleeing home, Marina said they were buying whatever they could to eat. Often, there was no place to buy food. And when they could buy something, if it was available, they were paying ridiculous prices such as an outrageous $350 for a five pound bag of flour. When the food couldn’t be bought, neighbors banded together to pool resources. Marina said everybody would give what they could to the kids. Food wasn’t the only thing hard to come by. Clean drinking water, any water, was extremely scarce. Indoor plumbing became a luxury of the past, before the scars of war were formed and conveniences of industrialization reversed. If there was running water nearby, the Serbs were perched to target anyone seeking water as many tried.

Marina said during the times of water shortages was the most heartbreaking times she witnessed.  It was really hard for her, then as a young single woman, to see mothers struggle to feed their babies. The mothers were so dehydrated, they were unable to produce milk and it devastated all of them.

Escape

After the second evacuation, Marina helped the family get settled in again back at home, then she left for Germany. In Germany, Marina worked two jobs with the sole intention to send money back home to Croatia. She was driven to move the whole  family, her mother, father, two younger sisters and a little brother to a safer location not torn by war.

The trick was getting the money home to the family. She gently reminds that there is no business conducted, no banking, no postal deliveries in Croatia during the war. So how does she get money into a country where everything has stopped except fighting and fleeing? “I had to pay a courier.” She says using air quotes. When asked how she found such an exceptionally noble person, she only shrugged and said “people you know tell you about people they know…”  There must have been some sort of covert way to find such a trustworthy individual to hand over hard earned war-rescue funds. She admitted that sometimes she held her breath and wondered if she just gave away her money. And of course there were fees to make these couriers more trustworthy. Marina said the only thing guaranteed was the higher the fees the faster the delivery.  She was fortunate not to have lost any of her money outside of  the delivery fees.

Becoming American

After getting Marina’s family to safety and moving on with a new life of her own, Marina, her husband and infant son set out to live in the United States. She followed the same route others in her extended family did. First getting things in order on the East coast before traveling to the Rocky Mountain Empire. There was much time Marina spent visiting Denver before actually deciding to make a permanent home here.

As soon as she arrived upon American soil, Marina began to learn English. She arrived already fluent in four other languages. Within four years she claims, “I was comfortable with my English.”  By the time she moved to Denver, she was confident enough to begin the process of earning her citizenship. She had studied for the exam with the help of her adolescent son and an employer at Columbine High School but didn’t take the exam until she was working for Aurora Public Schools.

By the time Marina took the examination for her citizenship, the APS district had a new Superintendent, a retired 2-star U.S. Army General who she says “is very adamant about her immigration status changing to citizen. Both the Superintendent, John Barry and his Executive Assistant Cheryl Dalton offered support and tutoring above and beyond Marina’s wildest expectations. They took great interest in helping Marina to earn her citizenship. When she completed her citizenship exam, she had been notified of her award of citizenship and then invited to a citizenship ceremony. Next to her proud husband and son, both Mr. Barry and Mrs. Dalton were in attendance at the ceremony. Back at the office, many attended the celebration for Marina that was new to most of them to tell her how proud they were to know her. Marina was overjoyed by the show of support for her and how proud they were to know her. She still shows off the card that accompanied a charm bracelet. The card tells what each charm represents for her U.S. citizenship. Mrs. Dalton said Marina was the first person she ever knew to go through the citizenship process. “Marina is such an outstanding young lady who has been through so much. She deserves the honor she has worked very hard to get. I am very proud of her.”