My father, Luka Brajnovic,  had to endure very difficult situations in his life. In 1943, when he was just 24, a young journalist , a civilian, a pacifist, trying to survive in the middle of a cruel war, he was a direct victim of the violence. the train in which he was traveling, fell in an ambush. There was an intense shooting. Many travellers died. He survived but was taken prisoner. His captors forced him to walk three days without food or water. He was convinced they were going to kill him. In his diary he writes about the third day:

The thought of death appears natural and even as a lifeline. Here in a desert and unknown place, they will bury bodies who were loved, but the souls cannot be buried, not here, not anywhere. If they kill me, they may do so with the best of intentions, thinking they do an act of justice. But would that be really justice ?. Whom have I done wrong? Whom I wished evil ?. However, I reject these thoughts because  I don’t want they discouraging me. Forgive. Forgive everyone. Also to those who commit the injustice and those who, with the injustice,  have caused this chaos .

When they arrived to the headquarters of the guerrilla, they told him he was sentenced to death. He dug his own tomb along with 17 other men, and was in front of the armed guerrilla men who were going to shoot him when a guerrilla chief, who was a journalist like my father, gave the order to take him away from the line. He saved his life. But then began a long story of suffering as a prisoner.
Reading my father’s diaries, I’m deeply impressed by his sense of forgiveness, something he kept all his life and now I understand why that man who seemed so fragile had such an inner strength.

Lately I’ve been busy building a new blog dedicated to him in Spanish. Anyway if you want to take a look is in brajnovic.info

Mad Libs