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CFIVA News

VUKOVAR: REMEMBERING THE FALLEN

Friday, September 16, 2005

Lighting a candle in remembrance of our dead. The National War Memorial and our wreath can be seen behind.

Thursday, 15th September 2005 was yet another beautiful day in Croatia. In the east of the country the sun shone as the mighty river Danube flowed lazily south-eastwards. The Association's Secretary Daniel Kington made the annual pilgrimage on behalf of our members to the Cemetery of Heroes at Vukovar, the small baroque town on a bluff overlooking the river. Assisted by a local disabled war veteran, we laid a wreath dedicated to our fallen International Volunteers and all the victims of foreign aggression at the base of the National War Memorial before conducting a brief service of remembrance. Around us lay the war graves of hundreds of Vukovar's courageous defenders, lost in the dreadful siege that destroyed the town in November, fourteen years ago. Each grave is a beautiful work of black marble, tended carefully by groundskeepers and relatives of the fallen. It is a peaceful place. It is a dignified place. Kington also lit a votive candle and recited a prayer for the International Volunteers, followed by a verse of poetry that has become an anthem;

"Here dead we lie, because we did not choose To live and shame the land from which we sprung; Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose But young men think it is, And we were young."

As our business came to a close, relatives began to arrive for the funeral of Vukovar defender Captain Ivan Janko, missing for fourteen years to the day, whose remains were recently found in a mass grave and identified through DNA analysis. One was tempted to remain to present our respects on behalf of the Association but the family members were grieving and, as many more people arrived, we expressed our condolences and moved on.

We need to thank those who transported the wreath, liased with the Cemetery's director on our behalf and notified the local media; those who ordered the wreath with a good local florist at a discounted rate especially for us and to Mr Antun Vidakovic who constructed it and who, it should be noted, lost ten members of his immediate and extended family (men, women and children) in the battle for Vukovar.

CFIVA

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