We can get married and get documents for you. Come back to Belgrade.
While she was thrilled to hear from George, she was not entirely sure she wanted to go back to Belgrade. She had convinced herself that the war would be concentrated in the big cities, and she had seen the devastation already wrought on Belgrade. Maybe if she stayed in the countryside she would be okay, she thought. And did she really want to leave Yugoslavia, even if she could?
Her brother, Mirko, an engineer who spoke English, convinced her to think clearly. The two of them set off by train for Belgrade, itself a dangerous journey as the Ustashe monitored all activity in the region now, looking for any opportunity to harass someone without the right papers. George thought Mirjana was on her way to Belgrade, but he didn’t know when she might arrive. Realizing that the Germans might go to her Belgrade home looking for her—or a neighbor might report her arrival—he didn’t want Mirjana to get off the train and go there. But if the train arrived after the six p.m. curfew, she would have to stay on the train all night and then get off at six a.m. So every day, George sprinted out of the house at six a.m. and down to the train station, hoping to catch Mirjana before she could walk into danger. She might get off the train at the same moment George was able to step outside, so every morning he was in a mad race to catch up with her. This went on for five days until he returned to his hotel and found Mirjana waiting there with Mirko.
After a tearful embrace, George asked how she had known to go to the hotel instead of going home. Mirjana told him that she and Mirko had, in fact, tried to return home that morning. When they approached the house, the family’s maid rushed out and yelled at them to go away. Her frantic tone explained why. Mirjana knew that George had friends staying at the hotel, so she hoped to find him there also.
As soon as they were reunited, George took Mirjana to the American consulate and spoke with the consul, an earnest administrator who was working feverishly to get Americans and their loved ones out before it was too late. He had already given the proper documents to Vasa and Koka, who had been married earlier that day. He told George and Mirjana that they must hurry. But there was one important issue, he said. The Germans have forbidden any foreigners to marry.
“You have to go to this church at six o’clock in the morning,” he said, handing George a paper with the location of the church. “Don’t tell anyone except two witnesses. You have to bring two witnesses and the priest will marry you.”
They were married the next morning in a quiet, simple ceremony attended only by one of Mirjana’s cousins and an American friend of George’s. They had a small meal at the cousin’s home that morning, and that was the end of their wedding celebration. After taking their marriage certificate to the American consulate, they received the documents that they hoped would get Mirjana out of her rapidly worsening homeland. The main paper was surprisingly simple, just a letter really, from the American consul.
This affidavit confirms that Mirjana Vujnovich, nee Lazic, is a Yugoslav citizen married to an American. This affidavit is issued to her to enable travel to the home of her husband in the United States of America. Please extend to her all courtesy and offer any assistance you can.
It was signed by the consul, with a seal and a big red ribbon. They thought it quite a handsome document. When the consul handed it to Mirjana, he explained that it would help her once they got out of occupied territory. If they could get to a country not controlled by the Axis, maybe Palestine, this document would enable her to get to the United States with George. But there was no telling if it would carry any weight with the Germans or other local authorities, he said. All three of them knew that the consul was being optimistic about that last part. It was very unlikely that the Germans would respect the consul’s document, and Mirjana’s Yugoslavian passport carried the same weight. Outside of Yugoslavia it could help her, but not in her own country.
The city of Belgrade was in ruins, with Germans and Ustashe watching everyone, so George wanted to move as quickly as possible. From his contacts with the American embassy, he heard about a boat that was going to evacuate Americans to Budapest, Hungary, via the Danube River. George made sure he and Mirjana were on the boat, and Mirjana’s documents were good enough for her to blend in with the group of Americans as they evacuated. The newlyweds ended up staying with about a dozen Americans at a small hotel in Budapest, still firmly in German-occupied territory, the group talking nonstop about possible ways to get out. By this time, even an American passport could not guarantee an easy exit. If you could find a means out of German territory, the American documents would ease the way. But you still had to find a way out from a region that was rapidly falling into a state of confusion. The Germans prevented most travel through areas they controlled, and even in the rare situations in which someone like George would be permitted through, someone like Mirjana would not. There was no simple way out. Like the thousands of others trying to flee Yugoslavia, George and Mirjana had to be creative.
Some of the group wanted to try going to Switzerland through occupied territory and then on to southern France, the extreme southern part of the country not yet occupied by German soldiers. From there they might get a boat to Spain and to Portugal. But after some investigation, they realized the Germans would not allow them to travel to Switzerland through their occupied territory. The Americans didn’t know where to go or how to get home. George and Mirjana were worried that they had waited too long to get out. Maybe George should have just gone on his own, Mirjana thought.
Their break came when George was exchanging his Yugoslavian money for Hungarian, thinking out loud about possible routes to the United States. The old man changing his money offered a suggestion that had not occurred to the Americans yet.
“Why don’t you fly out of the country?” he said. “You can fly south to Bulgaria. Bulgaria is not at war, so you can get away from there easily.”
If he was right, this could be exactly what George and Mirjana were waiting for. He made a few phone calls and found out that there was a regular Lufthansa flight that went from Budapest to—of all places—Belgrade, and then on to Sofia, Bulgaria. If they could get on that flight, they might escape occupied territory. He took Mirjana to the airport and tried to buy two seats on the flight, only to be told that there was only one seat available each day from Budapest. They were desperate by this point, so they discussed going separately, Mirjana one day and George the next. But the problem was that Mirjana really could not travel without George because they would check her papers in Belgrade and arrest her for trying to leave the country without permission. Even with George at her side there was doubt about whether her papers from the American consul would be enough to get her through; without George, they were almost certain she would be arrested. They were dejected again. They could not escape this way together, but it might be their only chance to get out. They seriously considered flying separately, with George going first and vouching for Mirjana along the way, telling the authorities that his wife was following him the next day. They still didn’t like the idea, but they might have no other choice.
The next day, Saturday, July 12, George and Mirjana were in bed in the small Budapest hotel when the phone rang. It was Lufthansa, calling the number George had left just in case something changed. The airline said they had two seats open from Budapest that day instead of one. Would they like to book them?
George said yes, yes, please book those seats for us. He and Mirjana were thrilled that they might finally make it out of occupied territory. George hurried to find a way to change some money from Hungarian pengö, which would be useless after they left, to American dollars. He had to wake up the minister of finance in Budapest to make it happen, but he was able to convert about one thousand dollars. Mirjana, meanwhile, was trying to figure out what to take from the suitcases they had been lugging around since first leaving Belgrade. Lufthansa would allow only twenty-two pounds apiece. When George returned they took two small suitcases with them to the Lufthansa of
fice in Budapest, leaving all their other belongings behind. The airline drove them to the airport, where they boarded a Lockheed Lodestar, a graceful twin-engine airliner with twelve seats in four rows of three across.
George and Mirjana were eager to get on the plane and make the final legs of their roundabout journey out of Yugoslavia, but they were anxious also. Mirjana’s documents might not be enough to get them through, and they knew it depended mostly on who was checking. If they had only a cursory look by local authorities in Belgrade, there might not be any problem. But if German authorities wanted to take a closer look, Mirjana could be spotted as a wanted person by the Gestapo. They would arrest her and then . . . George couldn’t stand to think too much about what might happen to her.
They were the last people to board the airplane, and the only two seats available were not together. One was open in the very front and one in the back. George and Mirjana didn’t mind, as long they could get on their way, so they parted and George took the seat in the rear, knowing that might be the bumpier ride. Mirjana sat up front next to a somewhat plump but well-dressed woman. They both tried to relax as the plane taxied down the runway and rose into the air.
The plane hadn’t been aloft long before George sensed something was amiss. From his seat in the rear he could see Mirjana moving about in her seat, restless it seemed, and the woman next to her appeared to be helping her. The woman had a wet cloth she was holding to Mirjana’s head while she patted the younger woman on the back.
Mirjana’s airsick, George thought. He had known this might be a problem because she had not flown much. George stood up and walked down the aisle to check on his wife. As he reached her seat, he bent down to see her and was surprised to see how pale and distraught she was. The woman in the next seat smiled at George and gave a sympathetic nod to Mirjana, taking the cloth away from the sick woman’s forehead so the couple could speak. George immediately tried to comfort her.
“Mirjana, what’s happening?”
She looked up at him, far more sick than he expected to see her, and said, “I feel terrible, George.”
“Why are you so sick?” he asked. “It’s just the plane. You won’t be sick for long.”
Mirjana didn’t reply right away, and then she motioned for George to lean down closer. He did and Mirjana leaned in to whisper into his ear, hoping the sound of the airplane engines would prevent anyone else from overhearing.
“Do you know who this is next to me?” Mirjana whispered. George looked over at the woman, who was quietly reading a book. He shook his head slightly to indicate he had no idea. “It’s Mrs. Goebbels!” Mirjana whispered intently, almost breaking into tears as she said it. “The wife of Joseph Goebbels! George, I’m going to be arrested when we get to Belgrade!”
There wasn’t much George could say to Mirjana without causing a scene, so he just whispered to her that everything would be fine and to try to relax. He kissed her on the forehead and walked back to his seat, stunned at the incredible bad luck of his wife sitting on a plane next to Magda Goebbels, the first lady of the Third Reich, wife of the fiery and charismatic propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, a top leader in the Nazi movement. Adolf Hitler was a witness at their wedding, and in the 1930s Magda bore six children for Goebbels. With Hitler remaining unmarried, she was promoted as “the first lady of the Third Reich,” the Goebbels clan presented to the public as the model family for Germany. She looked like such a kind woman, Vujnovich thought, but he knew better. In Hitler’s bunker at the war’s end in 1945, this kind-looking woman would kill her six children one after another by crushing a cyanide capsule in their mouths.
As he took his seat in the back of the plane, George could see that Mirjana was growing more and more upset. Magda Goebbels was playing the concerned mother, putting the cool cloth to Mirjana’s forehead and hugging her around the shoulders. George could only imagine how the woman’s touch made his wife more ill. But more important, he kept thinking about what would happen when they reached Belgrade. Surely Joseph Goebbels’s wife would be greeted by German guards, who probably would want to take a look at the passengers on this flight about to leave occupied territory. Exactly what we were trying to avoid, he thought.
There was nothing they could do to change what would happen at the airport in Belgrade. For the rest of the forty-minute flight, George could only sit and watch while his wife was comforted, to no avail, by the most revered woman in the Third Reich. As the plane touched down in Belgrade for refueling, it appeared Mirjana was near collapse, the stress of the moment about to overwhelm her. But he could do nothing without arousing suspicion, so he waited for the door in the rear of the plane to open and then he was one of the first to exit. His heart sank as he saw a German officer there waiting to check passports. He handed his over and the officer let him pass. George stood nearby, waiting for Mirjana, hoping this wasn’t going to be the last time they saw each other.
All of the other passengers came out the rear door, the officer checking each passport, and then finally George could see Mirjana coming down the aisle, Magda Goebbels’s arm underneath hers, helping steady the sick woman. As they came to the door, the officer called out, “Passports, please,” as he had with everyone else. George looked at Mirjana and they both thought this was the moment they had been dreading. Then Magda Goebbels shouted crossly at the officer.
“What do you mean, ‘passports’?” she said sternly, in the tone of a woman used to berating Nazi officers and getting away with it. “This is the wife of that man standing there next to you. She’s sick. Help me with this woman or you will hear from me!”
The officer did as he was told and helped Mirjana out of the plane, forgetting all about the passports. Mirjana walked to George and they embraced, no one around them knowing why they were so relieved. Magda Goebbels wished them well and went toward the airport terminal, nonplussed. George and Mirjana couldn’t believe that Magda Goebbels had just saved them.
After a half-hour wait for refueling, they reboarded the plane and took off for Sofia, Bulgaria. Mirjana sat next to Magda Goebbels again, more composed but breaking into tears as the plane flew directly over the house where she had lived in Belgrade. She knew she was looking at her home country for the last time. Magda Goebbels assumed she was airsick again and patted her hand gently.
When the couple landed in Sofia, Bulgaria, they found a country that was not yet in the full throes of Nazi occupation but nonetheless full of Nazis shouting, “Heil Hitler!” at every opportunity. They stayed for two days until George could change more money at a bank on Monday and then they took a train to Svilengrad, a village of no more than a dozen little houses. There was no hotel, and the only water in town was a single hand pump, where George and Mirjana took turns washing their faces. George had found that this little village was the only way to get from Bulgaria to Turkey, which was still neutral, because the Germans had destroyed all the bridges between the two countries. The only remaining way out was a little strip of land near Svilengrad. The only trouble was that the Germans didn’t want anyone leaving Bulgaria for Turkey, so that strip of land was mined.
The locals had found a path through the minefield, and for a fee they would show George and Mirjana where it was. The villagers took their passports and luggage when they arrived, to make sure they wouldn’t head off in search of the path on their own. When a local villager drove George and Mirjana to the border the next morning, he pointed out the ribbons marking the safe path and made it clear that they must stay between them. They could see evidence of where mines had exploded on either side. George and Mirjana were scared, but they knew this was what they came for, their way to freedom. George handed the driver the equivalent of twenty-five dollars, a tremendous sum of money for a poor villager in 1941, and received their passports and luggage in return.
Hand in hand, they gingerly walked the hundred yards from Bulgaria to Turkey, taking about fifteen minutes and hoping the villagers knew what they were talking about. As they got to the end of th
e path, Turkish officials were there to greet them. One officer took George and Mirjana’s passports, looked at them and the other documents Mirjana carried, and handed them back.
“Welcome to Turkey,” the man said.
Chapter 8
Man of the Year
George and Mirjana knew the worst of their ordeal was over as soon as they set foot in Turkey. They still had a long way to go, but they were out of German-occupied territory. After hearing about their successful escape from Yugoslavia, ten more Americans took the same path into Turkey. Once again, George and Mirjana found themselves in a group of Americans trying to find a way home, congregated this time in Istanbul. To the south, Syria was in the hands of the Vichy French, working with the Germans, so that meant the only route out was to the east, going to the Indian subcontinent and getting a boat around the Cape of Good Hope. Some of the Americans took that route and made it home in about two months, but George and Mirjana weren’t sure they were up for such a long, arduous journey by boat. And besides, George was quickly running out of money and probably couldn’t afford the passage anyway.
Istanbul was relatively safe and peaceful, so they stayed there for a while, during which time the British military attaché approached George. The British had heard of the couple’s adventure and wanted to glean some information about the occupied territory. George told them all he knew and, in the process, became quite friendly with the British military officers. When they had been in Istanbul for a month, the free French invaded Syria and took control, which made it possible for George and Mirjana to travel through the country on a train called the Taurus Express, to Jerusalem, which was in Allied hands. But when they got there, the authorities would not let them go on to Cairo, Egypt. Too many refugees were taking that route and Cairo couldn’t handle any more. So George and Mirjana were trying to figure out their next step, walking the streets of Jerusalem as they discussed options, when a man approached them. Mirjana was admiring a store’s window display when the man came up and commented on her shoes, canvas sandals common in Yugoslavia. He then asked if she was from Yugoslavia, and after a short conversation the two refugees realized they had mutual friends. He asked Mirjana and George about their backgrounds and then said, “I need people like you. I’m the head of the Yugoslav section of the British General Service Intelligence [GSI], and I need someone to translate for me.”
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