The Small Boat of Great Sorrows Read Online Free PDF

Croats had been the reigning villains. In the latest one, the Serbs were the ones with the bloodiest hands. And in both conflicts, bitter ethnic arguments had at times masqueraded as scholarly debate over body counts and degrees of cruelty. Depending on your ethnic vantage point, Jasenovac was either the great blot of Croatian guilt or the overblown lie of Serbian propaganda. The outside world had pretty much settled on the former version.
    But if the death toll remained in doubt, there was nothing ambiguous about methodology. The killings at Jasenovac had been brutal and blunt, a crude Balkan antidote to German industrial precision. The locals had done things their way, using bludgeons, knives, axes, and pistols, often employing an inordinate amount of time. It was a genocide of gouging relish that had shocked even the Nazis, whose officers had huffily written Berlin to complain about the barbarity. Not that their letters did any good. Hitler seemed to like the idea of an ally willing to show some initiative. Besides, even the local Catholic church had tacitly endorsed aspects of the project, with the priests and bishops of Zagreb lining up in support of the new regime.
    â€œOf course I’ve heard of it,” Vlado said. “My mother’s Catholic. She was more interested in religion than nationalism, so she was always ready to admit that Jasenovac was something horrible. Her parents were a different story. Her father put me on his knee to tell me all about the lies of the Serbs before I even knew what a Serb was. He’d point to Orthodox priests in their beards and black frocks as if they were vampires who’d just stepped out of a tomb. I used to have nightmares about them snatching me in my sleep. But mostly it sounded like a lot of old people getting too worked up over things that didn’t matter anymore. Then the shells started falling in ’92, and I realized maybe I should have paid closer attention.”
    â€œYou and everyone else with any sanity. Well, the fellow we’re after can tell you all you’d ever want to know about Jasenovac. Ran a guard unit there, right in the thick of things. There’s an interesting file on him back at The Hague. You’ll be reading it soon enough, I hope.”
    â€œI’d be more interested in finding out how he managed to avoid being caught after the war.”
    â€œThat’s not a bad tale, either. Up through Austria and into Italy. Hid out at farms and monasteries awhile. Then a DP camp, a big holding pen for displaced persons, before he ended up in Rome. Stayed in Italy more than fifteen years, with a lot of help from some church people, a bunch of Croatian priests who ran a little operation on the Tiber. Ever heard of the ratline? Laundered Western money paying for forged documents and freighter rides to Argentina. Seems that the Brits and we were already more worried about Stalin than a few leftover Nazis. We figure he made his way back to Yugoslavia in 1961. Living under a new name and doing okay for himself. These days he’s a pretty successful businessman. Gas stations. Beer and liquor. And still pretty active. Lately he’s been winning economic-development grants from the European Union. Brokers stolen cars on the side.”
    â€œThen why do you need me?” Vlado asked. “This one sounds solved. Sounds like what you need is an armed escort. A bodyguard. You’ve got a name for it in the States, I’m sure.”
    â€œA marshal, you mean, or a process server. Yeah, we could use a few thousand of those. It’s generally not our job to pick these guys up anyway. Ever. Then again, we’re not really supposed to be handling cases from the Second World War, either. I guess you might say all of it’s a little unorthodox, or even off the books. SFOR is who normally picks up our suspects—the peacekeeping forces—but they usually say no thanks whenever we ask. They like to keep things quiet, not