PEOPLE With Big Heart : (friendship without borders - Dr. Miodrag ...

One day I bumped into Josif, the carpenter. His face
was wrinkled, burned and aged from the sun, yet gentle
and thoughtful. He was walking about town from the German
headquarters back to the camp alone. He had his yellow
band around his arm, and a heavy canister of acid for
bathroom disinfection. He was very pleased to see me.
Quietly, quickly, in barely comprehendible Serbian, he
confided that his wife was very sick, and that she was bed
ridden in the camp. He was worried that she would be disposed
of by the Germans since she was useless to them
now. I welled up with tears, and tucked in a pack of cigarettes
into his pocket, having nothing else to give to him.
The helplessness and humiliation that these people experienced
left an enduring mark on my soul. I will never
forget how I felt seeing them around the occupied city,
walking without guards, in camp clothes, with yellow
bands, dragging their feet from exhaustion. These people
truly loved our city, its buildings, boulevards, trees, and
their former neighbors who looked them in the face, smiling
and showing sympathy in spite of callous German
soldiers in repulsive green uniforms who sported the
words “God is with us” engraved onto their belts, yet had
a merciless heart.
At that time, during the summer, I used to go swimming
close to the camp grounds, right next to “Macva’s”
beach where only Germans and natives of German ancestry
were allowed. I went just to see how ugly they were,
just to hate and despise them. And, they truly were the
most repulsive creatures I had ever seen. Purple skin with
orange freckles all over their hands and backs, reddish hair,
small, wicked eyes, fat and flabby – everyone was looking
at them secretly. They all wore their metal army identification
tags around their necks. They were having a gre-
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