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Published on 11/25/1996 All articles from this issue

Helping from the heart

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By Joanne Griffith Domingue

Town Crier Staff Writer

Local Croatian mothers support children, women victims of the war in Bosnia

Even though Anka Margaretic has lived in Los Altos Hills for 22 years, she is still close to the Croatian community in the former Yugoslavia, where she was born 55 years ago.

When the war in Bosnia began in the early 1990s, she wept for the victims, especially the children.

"I feel guilty. I'm here. 'What can I do?'" she asked herself. "The most needy victims of the war are the children. If I was there, it would be my children, my grandchildren."

So Margaretic gathered together her friends, and together in 1992 they formed a Northern California chapter of the Los Angeles-based Society of Croatian Mothers. In April, 1996, they created their own group, the Croatian Mothers Humanitarian Association.

This incorporated, all volunteer, nonprofit women's organization raises money to help the children in Croatia and Bosnia recover from the war. Even though the group has more than 300 members from Santa Rosa to Salinas, many would say its heart is here with Anka Margaretic, the founder and chairwoman of the board, and with her friends.

The women sponsor 20 children in Croatia who have lost a parent in the war and now live with relatives or in foster homes.

To help these children, Margaretic and her group raise $6,600 which is distributed by the Catholic church. They also support an orphanage in Croatia for which they raise more than $20,000 each year.

The war, "It is such a horror," said Borka Leban, a 28-year resident of Los Altos, who was born in Yugoslavia.

"You see TV and start crying when you watch these poor children with big eyes who are so frightened."

Kathy Vlahov, 36, Margaretic's niece and a Los Gatos resident, said that after five years of war, these children, "saw parents and grandparents killed in front of them. When you hear the stories, it sickens you to your core."

These children, Margaretic said, "lost their community, their school, a sense of what to live for. These children are still in very much need. They need to know people still care, that we haven't forgotten them."

Vlahov said what got her going in working for the children, was "having family there, seeing the devastation in the news." She felt frustrated. She knew she couldn't save everybody, but she could do something by "getting the word out that there are so many children who need our help."

Margaretic's group also feels horror at what so many women endured.

"Rape was sanctioned by the military," said Los Altos resident, Lydia Vidovich, 39. "My husband's cousin's wife was left home by herself. The soldiers set up a base camp in her home. And the soldiers raped her - a woman in her 60s."

These Los Altos women told of rape camps they'd heard of during the war.

"What's the reason behind a rape camp?" Vlahov asked. Then she answered her own question.

"You take away a woman's right, and then she has an off-spring of the enemy."

There are no reliable nationwide statistics on the number of female victims in Bosnia, but it is generally thought that the war claimed more than 200,000 lives and displaced almost three million people.

And in some communities there are almost no men left, with sons, fathers, husbands and grandfathers having died during the war.

"Bosnia has the highest widow rate in the world," said Dawn Drzaic, 42, secretary of the Croatian Mothers organization and a Palo Alto resident. "There are almost no men over 16 years old.

"I go to church here and see all these beautiful families." She chokes with emotion as tears run down her cheeks. She takes a breath and continues, her voice shaking. "I look at these families, and I picture, 'what if there were no men over 16?' I think of my kids. If something happened to me or my husband, who would take care of them? If we can do something, to give back a little bit" is her goal.

Many of these local women return for two or three months during the summer, to visit family in Croatia.

Vidovich, who was born in Croatia - "We are Croatians from the former Yugoslavia" - spent two months there last summer with her husband and four children, aged 11,10, 8 and 5. "I'm from an island along the Dalmatian coast. It is absolutely beautiful, with the water crystal clear.

"But the people are hurting because of the poor economy," she said. Her father, who still has the home that has been in his family for hundreds of years, spends six months there and six here. Her children all speak Croatian and enjoy their visits.

"My husband loves our children going. They have different priorities there."

Vidovich said she believes it is her duty as a Croatian mother "to give support to other Croatian mothers who have been victimized by the war.

If we do not help, no one will."

The Croatian Mothers hold fund raisers and have been successful finding celebrity support.

"Like (San Francisco 49ers) Elvis Grbac and Jerry Rice," Vlahov said. "The 49ers are great supporters."

At a fund-raising gala Nov. 9, the women estimate that they raised $10,000.

In addition to supporting their 20 Croatian children and the orphanage run by Bosnian nuns in Croatia, the woman have shipped "so many cartons of food," Margaretic said, and medical supplies.

"These children are precious, and the future of the country.

"I think we have helped."

For more information about the Croatian Mothers Humanitarian Association, call (408) 866-5472.