Neither Red Nor Dead: Coming of Age in Former Yugoslavia During and After World War II

The Author, a member of a secular, non-practicing, Jewish family, is 12 years old when the Germans occupy former Yugoslavia. His family hides in a small village and eventually joins Tito’s guerrilla. At 14 years of age he is appointed a military courier, given an outdated Italian gun and sent alone to roam through mountains, forests, and small villages of Croatia. Eventually, by orders and against his wishes, in the middle of the night, he boards an airplane that takes him to Italy. He manages to return back to Croatia, and after the war studies hard, makes up lost high school classes, and graduates on time from the medical school. Just when things start looking good, his father breaks down under the Communist pressure and the author is forced to take refuge in Bosnia. There he learns a lot about medicine and the slow-paced, oblique Bosnian culture: Everything is different than it seems, asking questions is not polite, and seeking the truth is a waste of time. This is a story of how a youngster coped with Fascism and Communism and how extraordinary events can bring out the worst and the best in ordinary people. How the author to keep himself sane in the turmoil learned to see the funny side of things, to understand what makes people tick, to keep both eyes open, and when the going got really rough- to recite poetry. This is also a story of two brothers who, facing the same difficulties, became very different adults and of a son who unwittingly repeats his father’s history.
ASIN: 0972951105
VSKU: BVV.0972951105.VG
Condition: Very Good
Author/Artist:Julius, Stevo
Binding: Hardcover