Lina\u2019s (from Vodnjan) life changed fundamentally immediately after the war \u2013 almost all her relatives and friends \u2013 everyone with whom she played and socialised \u2013 disappeared. They went to Italy. Her parents were farmers, without a specific trade and unwilling to change their lifestyle. After several years, people from the surrounding villages came to live in the town, so she gradually began to make new acquaintances. She began her education in Rijeka to become a teacher, but she had to stop because her parents could not pay for it. She returned home and began working as a saleswoman in Vodnjan. Then they sent her to a trade school in Sisak, which was very challenging for her: she only knew how to say hello in Croatian! They placed her together with twenty-four other girls in barracks, rooms without bathrooms and with just straw mattresses on the floor. However, she fondly remembers those days \u2013 they were, after all, the lovely days of her youth. She spent the rest of her working life as a saleswoman in Vodnjan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Her first husband died suddenly just ten days after their wedding, but later she remarried and had two daughters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She often met with the exiles, those who live in Italy. She visited relatives in Turin, Milan, Bergamo, Monfalcone, and travelled with a choir upon the invitation of various exile associations. The repertoire of the choir at such occasions included songs such as L\u2019inno all\u2019Istria<\/em>, El campanil de Dignan<\/em>, Canti di casa nostra<\/em>, 1947<\/em>, Amici miei<\/em>, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I was born in 1936, and in 1945, when the liberation came, I was 9 years old… and I remember that in the square near the church, down near Duomo<\/em>, we were all there, the youngsters, the girls, we were playing, joking and so on. And then suddenly after two, three years at most, I was left alone. The doors of all the houses were shut. I looked and wondered about where I was, where did all the people go, I was all alone, I lived right down by Duomo<\/em>, I was born there, and my mother and father stayed home alone with my grandmother. The whole family had gone from both my father\u2019s and my mother\u2019s side, uncles, aunts, cousins, all missing…<\/p> I only remember that we went to the train station when people were leaving… oh my! How many people, a mass of people saying farewell, kissing and hugging each other.<\/p> \u2026 they don\u2019t have the attachment that we had… I also have two daughters, they hold onto their Italianness, but it\u2019s never like ours because we were really attached… one still lives in the place today… the one in Vodnjan, Gianna, is somewhat more attached, and she also helps, if she can… but those too from Italy whilst their parents were alive… one guy still comes… you know who comes, those who have houses here that they received after their relatives died and so on… maybe there will be some more people in August, but after that there is no one left… slowly everything is dying, so it seems to me…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lina\u2019s (from Vodnjan) life changed fundamentally immediately after the war \u2013 almost all her relatives and friends \u2013 everyone with whom she played and socialised \u2013 disappeared. They went to Italy. Her parents were farmers, without a specific trade and unwilling to change their lifestyle. After several years, people from the surrounding villages came to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476,"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/veze-legami.emi.hr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}