Arriving in Kosovo

It seems a little strange walking through Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. With streets names like Bill Clinton, Robert Dole, and George Bush, they obviously feel indebted to an American foreign policy which stifled Serbian forces trying to crush this breakaway region into submission back in 1999.

Not only a statue, but he has a boulevard named in his honor. (I hope the message on the side of building isn't election related.)

Serbia doesn't recognize its independence, though the rest of the world does. In fact, Kosovo was just admitted as a member to FIFA (the international organization governing soccer) earlier this year and is now participating in 2018 World Cup qualification for the first time.

There are many pockets of ethnic Serb communities in Kosovo, but they are not really on speaking terms with the Kosovars (ethnic Albanians) who make up the majority of the population. You could feel the tension at the border crossing into Kosovo from Serbia. The bus I took to Pristina, which was ultimately bound for a predominantly Serb city was filled with mostly Serb passengers. Many passengers showed their indignation at having to submit to Kosovar border authorities, and likewise, the Kosovar border guard seemed rather gruff and aggressive when boarding the bus to inspect documents and the random shopping bag. Speaking with others at the hostel I'm staying at, my experience was rather tame compared with others who were on buses where confrontations were much more animated.

Needless to say, there is still a UN peacekeeping mission here; presently a contingent from Portugal is in Pristina.

It seems that there must be a great deal of investment here, as, unlike the other places I've been in the former Yugoslavia, construction is booming: roads, businesses, and residential alike; and much more heavy equipment is visible. I also noticed that most of the cars on the street are newer than their Serbian counterparts.

The foul weather that has been following me across Eastern Europe has now produced quite a bit of mud here, and that along with the noisy, overcrowded hostel I'm staying at is not making me a happy camper. (I think the ratio of residents to bathrooms is 18:1!)

A Tower of Skulls and the "Red Cross" Concentration Camp

Nis is a city in southern Serbia. It was the birthplace of Constantine the Great, the Roman emperor who established Christianity as the official Roman religion. In more recent history, Nis is know for being the site of the Skull Tower and a World War II concentration camp called "Red Cross".

The Skull Tower is the result of the an attempted independence movement by Serbs against the Ottoman Empire known as the "First Serbian Uprising" in 1809. The leader of the Ottomans sought to send a message to quell future indigenous ambitions by constructing a tower made out of the skulls of the Serbian battlefield casualties from the insurrection.

Detail of the remnants of skulls used as bricks from the inside of the tower.

The Red Cross Concentration Camp was operated by the German forces during World War II, from the initial German invasion in 1941 until it was liberated in 1944. The curiously ironic name of the camp originates from the camp's location, an neighborhood of Nis known as "Red Cross".

Near the entrance to the Red Cross concentration camp. The grey concrete building to the right is were prisoners were housed.

From the back corner of the camp facing the entrance. Note the interior barbed wire perimeter to keep prisoners away from the walls of the camp.

Prison cells on the third floor.

The camp was used to imprison and execute Serbs, Jews, and Roma from the area. Over the period of operation, 35,000 prisoners passed through the camp, with approximately 10,000 being executed. On February 12, 1942, there was a prison break, and fifteen prisoners managed to escape, though many others were killed in the attempt. The main street leading to the site is named "12th of February" as a tribute to the event.

The leaders of the February 12th outbreak.

 The museum also mentioned a second break that occurred on December 2, 1942, but the few prisoners who managed to break out of the compound were quickly captured and executed.

One location where mass executions of prisoners from the camp occurred on a hill outside of Nis called Bulbanj. The Yugoslav government erected a monument there to commemorate the horrific slaughter.

Identity card of Radoslav Velkovich, a 20 year-old man who was executed at Bulbanj.

The base of the memorial depicts a German firing squad shooting prisoners, and the resulting graves.

Three massive concrete fists rise high in defiance of Nazi brutality.

The Sajmiste Concentration Camp

The Sajmiste concentration camp was located at site of a a previously established fair grounds on the western bank of Sava river in Belgrade. Between 1941 and 1944, German SS units housed prisoners there, and executed over 20,000 Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Some were gassed in specialized vans, while others were killed by firing squad. The site is marked by a memorial, but no preservation of the actual facility exists. The area now is mostly residential, with a sports club and a car dealership in the immediate vacinity...I'm not sure of the actually boundaries of the camp.

A memorial to the camp was erected in 1995, the fairgrounds tower can be seen in the background.

The central tower to the former Belgrade fair grounds, where the Sajmiste camp was located.

Serbian Military History

Admittedly, I wasn't looking forward to traveling to Serbia. The land that begot Slobodan Milosevic, the fear-mongering politician that stoked the flames of ethnic tensions, ironically leading to the breakup of Yugoslavia, and Serbian's subsequent wars with Slovenia (1991), Croatia (1991-5) Bosnia (1992-5) and Kosovo (1998-9). Milosevic's rhetoric involving Greater Serbia and protecting ethnic Serbs outside Serbian borders was similar to Hitler's rhetoric in prior to World War II, trying to protect and unite ethnic Germans in France, Czechoslovakia and Poland, or more recently, Putin's logic with seizing the Crimea and parts of Ukraine to protect ethnic Russians.

To its credit, Serbia eventually ousted Milosevic, and handed him over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where he was put on trial for war crimes. (He died in prison while on trial; so despite five years of  court proceedings, a verdict was never reached.)

Anyhow, to try to grasp an understanding of the Serbian point of view, I decided to check out the Serbian War Museum, housed within the walls of a huge fortress dating back to the 6th century, that overlooks the confluence of the Danube and Sava Rivers.

The museum documents defeat after defeat of Serbian armies for nearly a millennium, with their only victory being Tito's Partisans contributing to the defeat of the Nazis forces in the region. Located at a crossroads between Central Europe and Asia Minor, Serbia was often the site of battles during the Crusades and later repeated clashes between forces from the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires. I had no idea how many wars had been fought there.

The most significant battle in Serbian history is the Battle of Kosovo Field in 1389, where Prince Lazar's outnumbered forces fought valiantly, inflicting heavy casualties on the invading Turkish armies, but were ultimately defeated. (Think "The Alamo" or perhaps one of the many bloody battles of the American Civil War with a great deal of religious overtones thrown in to increase the significance of sacrifice.) Milosevic made a controversial speech at the site of the battle in 1989 referencing Serbia's sacrificial role in defending European Christendom, interpreted by many as setting the tone for justified violence against Muslims (both Kosovars and Bosniaks).

It doesn't look like the brutalities of torture practices have changed much over the centuries.

The museum consistently portrays Serbians being victimized in the 20th century as well. Gavarilo Princip, the assassin who started World War I by killing Archduke Ferdinand and his wife in Sarajevo, is regarded as a national hero for sticking it to the Austro-Hungarian empire. Additionally the Serbs were involved in several wars with Bulgaria which occurred just before World War I that I had never heard of.

A Serbian fighter plane in World War I.

A Serbian soldier that survived the Serbian evacuation from Albania to Corfu (similar to the British evacuation of Dunkirk in WWII).

In a more justified cause, the museum shows evidence of Serbs becoming victims of fascist Croat collaborators during World War II. Croat forces acted as surrogates for German occupation, killing or imprisoning Serbs, Jews and Roma in concentration camps such as Jasenovac. Though this too, was used by some Serb politicians to justify its actions with regard to "getting revenge", this even carries on today with Bosnian Serb rhetoric.

Serbs killed by Croatian fascists (Ustashe) during World War II.

The museum lacks any mention of the wars of the 1990s, other than the attacks by NATO aggressors, when Serbia was victim to aerial bombardment. It failed to mention that the attacks were in response to Serbia's continued military attacks on Kosovo.

NATO aggression

Walking through Belgrade, it was interesting to see the city bustling with new construction, but oddly, the Ministry of Defense buildings that were damaged by NATO bombing remained untouched, possibly as a reminder of how Belgrade remains the victim.

A Ministry of Defense building which was destroyed by NATO bombers in 1999.

Ironically, there's a huge Serbian Army recruitment billboard in front of the Ministry building that was destroyed.

Jasenovac, a World War II Concentration Camp

Along the banks of the Sava River, which is the present day border between Croatia and BiH, lies the former Jasenovac concentration camp complex. During World War II, Croatian fascists (Ustashe) collaborated with the Nazis when Germany invaded Yugoslavia and established the Independent State of Croatia, albeit under German occupation . The Ustashe regiime set up their own concentration camps and operated them independently, imprisoning (or immediately executing) Serbs, Jews, Roma, Communists, and other political opposition. Approximately 80-100,000 prisoners were killed there during the course of the war, 20,000 of whom were from a special camp for children.

The Jasenovac Memorial, a huge stone flower rises from the remains of the victims. 

Much more detail to come.

Catching the Wrong Train in Slovenia

Trying to expedite my passage to the Slovenian War History Museum in Pivka, a little town in the southwest of the country, I spent the night in the Ljubljana train station. Knowing that trains to Pivka are few and far between, I was determined to catch the earliest train there--ruling out finding a room at 1:30 in the morning only to return for the 6:00 am train to Pivka (and two hours before I could exchange money for Euros.)

The first glitch was that I didn't take into consideration that it was a Saturday, and I didn't have the foresight to purchase a round-trip ticket. The Pivka train station office was closed, therefore I would have to buy my ticket (with Euros) on board the train, and there was no exchange office in the small farming community. Silly me!

The museum was the site of a former Yugoslavian Army barracks, and also located near some remnants of World War I fortifications and the Italian Alpine Wall, an interwar defense network constructed when the region was under Italian control.

A Yugoslav T-55 stands guard at the entrance to the Slovenian War History Museum.

The museum has many exhibits covering the evolution of weaponry, but what I was particularly interested in was the Slovenian war for independence in 1991, known as the "Ten-Day War" or the "Weekend War". (The main reason this war was resolved so quickly was due more to politics than military factors. Slovenia was the most ethnically homogeneous state within Yugoslavia, and had a very low number of  Serbians living there. The Yugoslav leadership was divided, but in the end they relinquished Slovenia because they anticipated the much more complex problem of  "protecting" the significant Serb population within the breakaway republic of Croatia.)

The turret of a Yugoslav tank destroyed by the Slovenian Home Defense. 

Little did I know that Yugoslavia had "need" at one time for  a submarine to patrol the Adriatic sea!

A portion of the Alpine Wall, constructed by Italy on the site of former World War I trenches. 

I was a little disappointed by the museum, as I didn't learn much more than I had already read or seen in part 3 of the BBC documentary, The Death of Yugoslavia. The best part of the visit was the gift shop, which serendipitously sold all sorts of military gear at relatively reasonable prices.

This helped to resolve glitch number two, as I had just hours earlier had a zipper blowout on the main storage area of my $2 garage sale acquired backpack!  And the gift shop accepted credit cards, score!

As I mentioned in the earlier, I didn't realize until I returned to the train station in Pivka (to catch the next to last train out of town) that the ticket office was closed. After walking two miles in the wrong direction, turning around, retracing my steps, and then a mere 500 yards in the right direction, I found an ATM. Luckily I still had time to sit down at a mom and pop restaurant for probably the best meal of my journey so far.

Now for glitch number three: the train I was taking back to Ljubljana was delayed unbeknownst to me, and I accidentally hopped on board the only train passing through at approximately the same time in this one-horse town. The conductor was very sympathetic of my error, and advised me how to correct my error: travel another half-hour in the wrong direction, so that I could link up with the next train back to Ljubljana.It made for quite a lengthy day, but the lumpy bed in the 9 bunk hostel room seem like heaven.

To Zagreb (and Beyond)

I grabbed a bus from Dubrovnik at 9am, hoping to escape the cruise ship crush that occurs in the small city, and to arrive in Zagreb while it was still light.

The landscape reminded me of driving through parts of Arizona, mountains looming off in the distance, but a bit greener. There were no signs of wildlife, despite the periodic warning signs for bear crossings at tunnel entrances…didn’t notice any road kill either, and very few houses in view after we left the coastal highway. Eventually we passed through a ridge of mountains, one of the tunnels was something like seven kilometers long. (Sveti Rok).

I saw a Burger King billboard quite a distance south of Zagreb, and KFC too, miraculously no McDonalds, though I’m sure they’re here somewhere.

About thirty miles from our destination, a massive traffic jam due to construction, turned the highway into a 90-minute crawl which more closely resembled a parking lot. So much for arriving during daylight. It was kind of comical as one teenager in the lane next to the bus started riding seated on the roof of his Range Rover, with his legs dangling inside the sunroof. Another woman jumped hurriedly out the car in front of the bus, to give her pathetic nervous little yipping fur ball a chance to stretch its tiny legs, and no doubt relieve its equally tiny bladder.

The funniest scene was watching a car get pushed by two young men in the breakdown lane, we had passed them just as we started to slow for the stopped traffic. They left us in the dust, as they pushed for another half-mile or so to the exit. (I remember days like that, and am so glad I didn’t choose to rent a car.)

Since I hadn’t yet made a reservation for a place to stay, I decided to press on and catch another bus from Zagreb to Ljubljana, Slovenia and see the sites of Zagreb on my way back through Croatia. It’s only another two hours, so I’ll end up arriving around 1 AM, but luckily, it’s pretty warm for early October, and I won’t freeze spending most of the night in the bus station. Hopefully, there will be some 24-hour wi-fi café!