Ivica Fonti Why I am like I am – Story of my Croatian Grandfather who was killed in 1945

Written by Ivica Fonti Melbourne Australia Monday, February 05, 2007

My Grandfather Josip Cok - Killed 1945

People have often asked me in conversation and on the internet, “Ivica, why are you so patriotic?” “Why do you worry about Croatia when you live and were born in Australia?” “Why do you act the way you do?” In this article I have decided to write and place on the internet and hope to explain these questions, so people then might understand me and my struggle to find my identity which has plagued me throughout my entire life. In addition, this might be an explanation to the people who try and put me down and discourage me from having a Croatian website on the internet, and explain to people who are constantly at me about politics etc., and why I have Croatia in my heart 24 hours a day. I get comments like this all the time “Ivica stay out of politics, leave it, you are an idiot stop doing that stuff on the internet”. People who were supposed to be my partners on Croatian radio programs and Croatian associations, telling me that I am crazy and then plotting against me to kick me out of Croatian programs or Croatian Associations which I established or help organize, the following paragraphs may or may not stop the innuendo, but I think it might explain and answer these and other questions to the greater community, Croatian , Australian, or any other people worldwide reading my pages on the internet. As long as I can remember from an early age my grandmother now known as Stefica Horvatek (remarried in Australia) used to teach me to speak the Croatian language, she also taught me how to sing Croatian songs. My grandmother loved music and sang in her early years in Croatia, she told me about how she used to sing with Ivo Robic when she was a young girl and has always been involved in the Croatian church choir in Clifton Hill in Melbourne Australia.

Both my Mother, Marica Cok and my grandmother used to sit with me as a small boy at night before I fell asleep, not reading me fairytales, but telling me stories about my grandfather and Croatia. How my grandfather courted my grandmother as a young soldier in the Croatian Domobran Army. He used to serenade my grandmother under her window with an acoustic guitar singing to her the song “Jedino palme znaju” (only the palm trees know).

From a very early age my grandmother always wanted me to be involved with music she used to say to me when I was only 5 years old, “You will be a Croatian singer one day, when Croatia is free again, you will be just like Ivo Robic or Ivica Serfezi. I was enrolled to go and learn music at the Croatian Convent Croatian nuns taught me how to play my first notes on the piano accordion. I even remember the nun’s name “Sestra Judita” The songs taught to me were Croatian, and they used to teach me and tell me stories about Croatia.

My grandmother made sure I was kept up to date with the latest Croatian music and she would bring me a new record every week. She also told me how I was able to operate the record player at 2 years of age and I would know which record to put on just by looking at the cover or at the color of the record. My mother and grandmother both told me that I used to sit for hours listening to Croatian music. That it was the only thing that would calm me down and keep me quiet when I started to cry.

At seven years of age I remember how the Croatian nuns moved to Canberra and there was panic, who is going to teach music to Ivica? My grandmother then found me a music teacher who recently migrated from Zagreb to Melbournewith his seven children. Professor Marijan Brajsa who also was the conductor for the Croatian church choir and immediately got a job playing double bass with the “Melbourne Symphony orchestra” My grandmother paid for my music lessons every week.

In 1972 I began to start discovering the truth about my grandfather and that the man my grandmother was married to was my step grandfather. There was a demonstration and protest organized by the Croatian community here in Melbourne in front of the Yugoslav consulate. I asked my grandmother at the time “Bakica, where are we going? She then told me how we were going to a protest to free Croatia. Being the young and inquisitive type I started asking questions like “What do you mean free Croatia? She then told me how Croatia was under communist rule and was occupied by and taken over by Russia and Serbia.

She started telling me about my grandfather and how he was killed by Tito’s Yugoslav army and how she had to run away to Italy after my grandfather was killed to save her own life and then later migrate to Australia. She then settled down and got married again and sent for my mother to come to Australia. Who was unfortunately left behind in Croatia (then known as Yugoslavia). My mother arrived in Australia in 1955 after my grandmother through the Australian authorities and the help of the Red Cross and the local Croatian priest at the time managed to locate her and safely bring her to Melbourne Australia to join her mother.

I remember the protest here in Melbourne in 1972 organized by the then Croatian catholic priest in Melbourne Reverend Josip Kasic.As clear as the day it happened. All the streets in the suburb of Hawthorn were blocked while we were marching. The lady that used to clean the Croatian church, all the kids used to all call her Baka Ruza. She had a sign made out of metal the pole everything was made out of metal painted on it was a Croatian flag, she gave me the sign and told me to carry it for Croatia. I carried that sign all day would not give it to anyone it was so heavy being made out of metal. Everyone asked me if I was alright, was it to heavy, did I want to give it to someone else to carry. My answer to everyone was no that I wanted to carry it.

We all met in a park near the Yugoslav consulate building. I also remember Albanians and Macedonians joining us with their flags and banners. Banners that had slogans against Yugoslavia and Tito. How Tito was a criminal and responsible for thousands of Croatian deaths and persecution of anyone who was against his regime. I even remember how one guy had a sign with a picture of Tito with devil horns coming out of his head. I can clearly remember how the people burnt the Yugoslav flag and how the people inside the Yugoslav consulate building were peering through the curtains afraid to show their faces to the crowd.

When we returned home I stayed that weekend with my grandmother. All that was on my mind was the protest and to find out more about my grandfather. My grandmother then told me what happened. Teary eyed she told me the story. She told me how Dida was killed and that the story goes that he was approached by the officers in Tito’s army at the time (My grandfather was an officer in the regular Croatian army “Domobrani”. Maybe someone who is reading this article and looking at my grandfather’s picture could let me know what rank he held.)

Being an officer my grandfather whose name was Josip Cok, was in charge of the supplies and was in possession of the key to access to all the army supplies. The Yugoslav army had won the war, but had not yet officially taken over the country. The Yugoslav army officers approached my grandfather and demanded the keys to the army supplies. My grandfather refused to hand the keys over saying to the Yugoslav partisan army officers, “You have not been granted power of government as yet, come back to me when you are in power and I will give you the keys, as for now the keys are in Croatian hands and will remain so until I am otherwise ordered, or when you come back to me with documents proving that you people are in charge.”

The Yugoslav officers did not like his answer. They proceeded then to restrain my grandfather and tie him up with barbed wire. They tied the wire to a motorcycle and dragged my grandfather for 25km around Zagreb. That was the last anyone had seen or heard from my grandfather. It was like he disappeared into thin air. My grandmother remembers running away in the middle of the night as soon as she heard what had happened. She hid near their house for hours with only two pictures one of her and her husband when they were married and another one of my grandfather taking my mother for a walk at the age of 2.

My mother at the time was in the care of my grandfather’s brother, as it was safer for her there. Hiding nearby my grandmother saw Yugoslav officers burn the house down. With the help of other Croatian people in the same predicament she managed to run away and escape over the boarder into Italy. From Italy she then came to Melbourne Australia in 1948. She was one of the first Croatians to arrive after the Second World War in Australia.

My mother has also told me the same story adding that the Croatian community back then when she arrived in 1955 was relatively small but were strong in solidarity. My mother also adds that when she was here in 1956 the Olympics were on in Melbourne and she did not know much English having recently arrived in a strange country to a mother she did not really know.

All the Croatian community wore their national costumes to the Olympics and they were asked by the Australian people “What country is that from?” and then they would have to explain to people where Croatia was etc.as people here in Australia only knew about Yugoslavia. Both my mother and grandmother refused to say that they were from Yugoslavia and always explained to people about Croatia and how Yugoslavia was evil. I remember them saying that all my life and they still say it to this day. My grandmother being and old lady now, refuse’s to go and visit Croatia. She has not seen her country since 1945.

When I was 10 years old I got heavily involved in the Croatian community through music. My music Teacher Professor Marijan Brajsa who was teaching me accordion at the time would come to my house to teach me. One day I was playing my accordion and singing and he happened to walk in on me to my surprise he told me how my voice was great and he wanted to work a little with me teaching me how to sing. My parents agreed to this. In 1973 he was organizing children from the community to perform at the Melbourne Town Hall for a huge Croatian concert for the 10th of April. Some Croatians in Australia to this day celebrate the 10th of April as a Croatian independence day.

At that stage of my life I knew a little Croatian as my grandmother would teach me how to speak, sing and write. My music teacher taught me to sing two songs for the concert. “Jos Hrvatska ni propala dok mi zivimo “and “Oj ti vilo velebita”. I practiced these two songs for about two months before the concert and other students at Professor Brajsa’s school were to form a band and play the songs for me to sing. Professor Brajsa even put his own son in the group to play bass guitar. I performed in that concert and wore a national costume my grandmother had, which was sent to her from Zagreb original sestinska from Zagreb.

I remember listening to all the speeches at the concert about how Yugoslavia was evil and how Croatia and Croatians must be Free. After all the speeches it was time for me to sing. I was introduced came out on stage at the time my grandmother took me to see the film Fiddler on the roof with Topol I remembered the musical scenes from the film and said to myself I had to sing and dance like that. I sang the songs and to my amazement the crowd went crazy. They would not let me off the stage chanting JOS! JOS!! more more. The problem was at the time they were the only two Croatian songs I knew how to sing and they were the only two Croatian songs the band of kids knew how to play. We ended up repeating the same songs four times.

From those experiences in my early life Croatia has been in my heart ever since I always think about my grandfather and how it was for him to die for Croatia and for fifty years being branded a Croatian nationalist criminal by Titos Yugoslav regime.

I suspect after looking at books in 1992 and films about the Jazovka Jama that’s where my grandfather ended up. To this day I really don’t know where his grave is and he is on my mind all the time. Even when Croatia was being attacked in the 1990’s I would constantly think of him and sometimes I think I feel his presence in me especially when my Croatian hot temper gets the better of me. I argue my point against Yugoslavia and against Tito and have done so all my life. If my grandfather thought it was worthwhile dying for then I think to myself it’s worthwhile fighting and defending anything for Croatia and its people.

That’s why I am always on the front lines if anyone from Croatia needs support. I will be like that for the rest of my life and no matter what anyone says I will always do what I believe in and stand up for my beliefs. I constantly think to myself if my grandfather could stick up for his belief in Croatia and die for it , then it is my duty and destiny to defend Croatia against any form of Yugoslavia , Serbian oppression , or anything or anyone else that wants to stand against a FREE and True DEMOCRATIC Croatia today or in the future.

I was born in Australia I think I am lucky to be in such a country where we have freedom and democracy and I do like Australia. But I will never forget what my grandfather died for and his spirit today drives me to defend Croatia anywhere and everywhere. I will do this for the rest of my life regardless of what anyone says or thinks... I am proud to be a Croat and I am proud of my grandfather, in my heart he was a hero to his nation.