We Escaped Through A Mouse Hole In The Iron Curtain — Part 2

Editor’s Note: In March of 1946, Radmila —”Mila”— Mitrovich and her family risked their lives to escape Yugoslavia shortly after Stalin’s Iron Curtain enshrouded Josep Tito’s Socialist Federal Republic. In these four weekly installments, The American Landscape is proud to present here Part 2 of Mila’s first-hand account of her family’s heroic efforts to escape tyranny.

I decided to go!

Nobody but myself knows how I felt then. Unknown surroundings, unknown people, separation from my husband and meeting again who knows if, when, and under what conditions.

We have been requested to abandon all our leather bags and to take with us only what we could carry with us on our backs in our knapsacks. As that was done, a cart stopped in front of the house with again another man, unknown and silent. I wanted to change my mind but I couldn't — I did not dare refuse to go and perhaps destroy the whole plan. My husband still wonders sometimes how he dared agree with the decision. Only we knew how many times we wanted to go back, during those seven days. But it was too late, too dangerous — we had to go forward. To cross the border, to die, or end in a jail.

I still wonder so many times if free people can realize what kind of life would drive individuals, as well as entire families, to make such dangerous and hazardous decisions.

But the decision was made, irrevocably.

My husband helped me put all the sacks on the cart, the children sat with me beside the driver and we left, without having the courage to look at each other once more.

The morning was cold, foggy, with a dim sun hiding behind the clouds. This part of the Country is extremely beautiful, with evergreen forests covering the mountains. Under different circumstances I know I would enjoy being there, to let my children, raised in the city, play and run through the weeds.  They did enjoy looking at the scenery and they asked many times how long will this ride be? Of course, I did not know. And when I asked the man, he asked me, “Are you not going to visit your brother at the garrison near the border?” I was totally lost, for I understood very well that this would be the very thing he would say if we were stopped and asked for our goal by some country police.

We were approaching a village when the rain started. I was told that at the other side of the village we were to change carts. The next one was to be pulled by oxen through the steep and narrow mountain roads.

The man sitting beside me still doesn't say anything. He tries to drive his horse as fast as he can and to finish his job as soon as possible. We start climbing immediately on the other side of the village.

The road is narrow, wet and deserted. Suddenly, on our left side, I notice a cart with two oxen. Behind it a man stands, with his back turned to us. Our driver still keeps his mouth shut. He stops suddenly as we reach the other cart.