Dunja Loncar Pticek, U3A at POUZ, Zagreb, Croatia

I am very much aware of how politics can influence the life of every individual. The history of my family illustrates this.

My mother was born in Trieste in the period of the Austro–Hungarian Monarchy. Her father was working at the Austro–Hungarian Railways and my grandmother used to travel to Vienna for shopping clothes for her three daughters. It was a modest Slovene family but living in “little Europe” my mother had the chance to speak Slovene, Italian and German and to make friends with people of different nations.

During the First World War the Monarchy collapsed and new states were built. Fearing deportation to the south of Italy, thousands of Slovenes moved to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. My family had found a new home in Zagreb and as an adult my mother found a good job thanks to her knowledge of languages.

Then there was World War Two. Without the firm foundation, the Kingdom melted away. Worldwide, homes were destroyed, whole towns bombed, nations condemned to extinction. I was born in 1944 and my father was killed in 1945 – two months before the declaration of peace.

New Yugoslavia was formed. Now we were six nations in the state instead of three in “Old Yugoslavia”. We were luckily situated between the two Blocks with more freedom and more money than people in the East Block. In the first years after the war the frontiers were being sealed but then they were opened and we were allowed to travel worldwide – with visas and sometimes with rough customs controls at the borders.

Unfortunately the six nations were not happy together and in the nineties a new war broke out – with new victims and new scars.

The twentieth century was the century of wars. Could it be possible that the twenty-first brings peace?  Isn‘t the idea of a United Europe a good guideline in this direction?

Croatia stands right on the doorstep of Europe. Once the door opens our youth will have much better chances then we had in our young days. The whole of Europe will be their homeland and the Europeans their co-citizens.

In the history there were plenty of attempts and promises of a better future. Maybe a United Europe is yet another illusion of “liberté, égalité et fraternité”. However it‘s worth trying. There are many problems to be solved -   the vast differences in size among the countries, the contrast between the rich and the poor ones, the administration costs, the multitude of languages, religions and customs, etc.

Whatever the obstacles, I‘m confident that everything is possible if we want it strong enough and I don’t know anyone who does not long for peace.