Travelling Archives - A Hundred Miles As The Crow Flies

September 13, 2017

Filming Day Two

The day began with a short drive down the banks of the river Drava, under the railway, then up the hill to a rather battered set of warehouses set behind a car park, the site of Stalag XVIIID, where my father was a prisoner of war from 1941 to 1944. The day’s shoot is to be made up of Monty officially meeting me on camera, and exploring the old camp, then traveling out to Ožbalt to follow in my father’s footsteps up the hill to freedom.

What had occurred to me the previous day was reinforced today. Due to setup times and all the reshoots, there is no real opportunity for fresh expression. For consistency, I found that I must decide which version of myself to present to the camera and stick with it. It was odd being conscious of this at the place where my father played his great impersonation of himself as the friendly colonial.

Once Monty and I had shaken hands on camera, and I had done my broadest Aussie g’day, we moved on the deeply disturbing task of entering the former Russian POW compound. The warehouses that held the Commonwealth POWs are in use, full of modern commercial activity. Not so where the Russians were held. Monty led me out of the warm spring sun into an icebox of despair that filled two levels. What had been built at the end of the nineteenth century as a simple almost elegant Hapsburg customs bond store on a railway siding; became for nine months after July 1941 a compacted hell for more than five thousand Russian POWs who were deliberately starved to death in the building by the German army. The spirit of the place is dark, hungry and angry; an awful place, we filmed very quietly and left as soon as we could.

The brooding warehouse of deliberate starvation

Ožbalt was a much happier place to be, in the country, high above the Drava river, in the sun, surrounded by nature and birdsong. Monty and I scrambled up the railway embankment and a hundred yards beyond up, the steep slope; replicating the first dash away from the work site. Then it was a more considered walk up the hill towards Lovrenc na Pohorju. The distance to Lovrenc was ten kilometres, and we were going to walk five for the cameras. Ožbalt and Lovrenc both sit at about 450 metres above sea level. The summit of the hill between the two settlement is 950 metres, so it was a steady, steep, winding walk. I was grateful for any stops to film scenery, particularly after my right foot sank deep into a deep drift of leaves between two rocks scraping my shin ( a moment of reality television I am sure will make the final cut).

The sound of running water followed us as we climbed

We reached the top of the hill after about two and a half hours, stepping out of the woods into a great meadow, with a view down to Lovrenc. Drone shoots were setup and shot, then Monty and I officially said goodbye for the cameras. Then we all walked down towards Lovrenc (harder on my knees than climbing), being picked up by the van halfway down, just past dusk. We then travelled in darkness through the hills to a hostel, unpacked into our dormitories and sat down to a fabulous traditional Pohorje meal of mushroom soup followed by a variety of meats and grains followed by strudels. I slept well

May 9, 2017September 12, 2017

Maribor

The Hapsburg empire crafted Maribor’s fate for hundreds of years. It was an industrial hub for over a century. It became the railway hub between the naval base at Trieste, Vienna, and the south-east of Mittel Europa. In Hitler’s war, it was a key marshalling point for the southern range in the enormity of the Russian Front. During socialist Yugoslavia, it built buses to supply all Eastern Europe.

Now it is post-industrial finding its way in the new Europe. It is the second largest city in Slovenia. So for my Australian readers think Geelong or Newcastle. For other readers, it’s a rust belt city with an ancient medieval core.

It’s proud of both its old and modern heritages. It made use of them to the full when it was the European City of Culture in 2012. The other change to Maribor is that before 1918 it was German in culture. The surrounding countryside was Slovene but Marburg an der Drau was Hapsburg German. Between 1918 and 1941 a lot of Germans retreated to Austria, the border is only twenty kilometres or so away. In 1941 Hitler arrived and said, “make it German again.” After the war, even fewer Germans lived in Maribor.

The point of the history lesson is that all this is in the streets and buildings of Maribor as you walk them if you look.

Where I am staying is in a block of workers apartments on the southern side of the Drava river (that cuts the city in two). It’s a kilometre walk north to the river. I walk past the Red Cross soup kitchen on the right, charming public gardens on the left. I cross a railway line; a teaching hospital is on the right followed by shops at the foot a large apartment block. All this (apart from the railway) is mid-sixties infrastructure. All a bit shabby, but efficient and well used.

Along the way are little roadside kiosks. They sell hot bread based snacks to commuters walking to and from work. I’d seen them in the taxi on the way from the station. I wondered why the serving windows were so small. Now I understood, it’s freezing, you only want to open the window to take the money and hand over the food.

Past the shops, you turn the corner. The buildings become old; then the river appears. The bridge and the medieval town laid out before you. The green hills behind covered with grapevines contrast with the steep red roves of the town.

The river banks on both sides are near ten metres high, quite steep, and terraced. The bridge, called the Old Bridge is another piece of Hapsburg engineering. Its pavements rest on a series of three steel half circles. As you step out from the south to the north, there open up clear views to the mountains, surrounding the city in every direction. The river has been a border for centuries; I step across it.

May 2, 2017September 12, 2017

Wobbly in Maribor

One thing I remember from my last visit to Maribor was the cafe at the train station, the Koala Cafe. The sign is still there across the underpass, but shuttered, abandoned. I didn’t notice this on arrival. I thought it closed for the night. The taxi driver was quiet, efficient, used the GPS to get me to the address displayed on my Airbnb app. His face was swollen and scarred. So were his hands, none of the swelling or scarrings was fresh, he looked as if he had been born with them. The radio played bright Slovene Europop for the whole ten-minute journey. The AirBnB proxy host lets me in and gave me the keys and returned to her apartment. My hostess was away traveling. All I cared about was the bed. There it was, in a room with a desk, quite dark although it was still light outside. Asleep by 7:30 pm, 34 hours after closing my front door in Kensington, with six hours sleep on two flights.

Wandering the apartment at two in the morning, I discovered where I was living in for the next few days. Two rooms, a galley kitchen, an entrance lobby, and a bathroom a balcony. Sparse furnishing. I read another chapter of Simon Winder’s wonderful Danubia until I was snoring again.

When I woke at five, the weather had changed completely. It had been pleasant spring weather in Maribor for weeks. Now it was five degrees outside and a chill north wind blowing in from the Alps. I looked at my weather app, a week of this to come. I already knew I needed to buy good walking boots for the hiking days of the film shoot. Now I would need some serious warming and waterproofing. Time to go shopping after breakfast.

Breakfast! I could not organise to put on toast. Off for a walk and explore. First, raise the shutters on the lounge window to see the day.

Lilacs! Filling the window, filtering the view. Outside is a small triangular park shaded by towering trees, bright spring leaves. On each side of the park’s triangle were five story apartment identical to mine. Built in the late sixties, I imagine. I dressed warmly (as I could), stepped out into the street.

Of course, the first thing to negotiate when walking with peak hour traffic is which way to look. All the habits of looking left first to have to reverse. It’s Europe for god’s sake. I almost killed myself at the first two roundabouts. Only the alertness and courtesy of Maribor drivers saved me.

A piece of Australia in my face as I turn into the road to the river and city centre…

April 24, 2017September 12, 2017

ANZAC Day in Slovenia

This is the sign outside the old Stalag XVIIID in Maribor, Slovenia. My father was a prisoner of war here before he escaped in 1944.

Through these doors over 5,000 Russian prisoners of war entered between July 1941 and April 1942. None of them left this building alive. Sometimes as a punishment for misbehaviour, my father had to bury them.

This is the Russian POW building, it’s at the end of a railway siding, easy to deliver souls to the hell realms.

A window into despair.

The memorial to my father’s escape at the place that it happened, Ozbalt.

The Slovenes always honour and remember the escape at Ozbalt.

This is the view the partisans and my father had when they liberated 80 POWs at Ozbalt.

Hiding in the bushes, waiting for the German train to deliver the POWs to Ozbalt.

The memorial to the Partisans of the region

Maribor Castle with the war memorial in front. The names listed are of civilian hostages shot by German firing squads. Ten civilians executed for every German harmed.

Another view of the escape point memorial at Ozbalt

The Slovenes mark the 350kms of the escape with the sign of a crow in flight, to memorialise my father, known to his fellow POWs as “the Crow” as he was the only South Australian.

April 22, 2017September 13, 2017

Now that the jet lag has cleared…

I have been telling everyone who asked me if I was excited about this journey that I would wait until Vienna before I let that happen. My unconscious had other plans.

I found myself at Tullamarine International terminal at seven am on a Sunday morning looking for my flight details with some concern. The info man laughed, “you are here twelve hours early, your flight is tonight…”

At least I knew I was packed and ready to go. I went home and waited for my opportunity to relaunch myself at the world.

The queue was long (I forgot to check in online), but Easter Sunday night is a relatively quick churn through screening and Border folk. What I wasn’t prepared for was the bold move by Melbourne Airport to remove any retail experience beyond duty-free. Flat representations of a bright new future are no replacement for real shops. Phased development appears to be a foreign concept, which you think an international airport would be better at integrating…

Retail deprived I joined the holding pen, waited my turn, then shuffled down the cattle race as one of the herd.

On one side of me a pleasant young blonde woman with a heavy cold, the other side a polite young brunette man. Immediately he began to interrogate me: my profession, my family, where was I traveling, how often had I flown. At this point, while we were taxiing to take off, I realised that this was all in the name of diverting his nerves. A small boy across the aisle was shrieking his head off because his seatbelt restrained him, his mother making futile efforts to pacify him.

This boy continued to scream in a sustained fashion throughout the flight whenever any situation did not meet his exacting requirements, his mother always cajoling or reasoning with him. I managed to sleep in one-hour intervals between thirty-minute shrieking sessions. It was twelve hours into the flight before the young brunette acknowledged any interest by holding the boy and playing games with him on the video console. The child attempted to use me as an extended armchair which I resisted firmly, much to his perplexed dissatisfaction.

We landed at dawn in Doha, and I allowed the blonde cold carrier and the high functioning family to precede me into the terminal.

Doha terminal is a palace of vanity filled with flocks of transitional souls. It is an afterlife of transport, a limbo of dysrhythmia, filled with big statements that slide past comprehension as travelers try to catch a glimpse of their next flight’s details held on a listing screen ten seconds per refresh. I was glad to be on board my flight to Vienna within an hour.

The six hours across Iran, Turkey and Bulgaria were blissfully uneventful, filled with an inane movie and sleep.

Vienna was a blissfully easy entry to the EU, and a quick ride to the Hauptbahnhof left me with three hours to contemplate Starbuck decaf, Viennese cakes, and dysrhythmia wheat beer.

On the platform waiting for the Zagreb train that would drop me at Maribor, a well-dressed man approached me with broken English who wanted to talk about his life as a Syrian refugee in Austria. It was an interesting conversation, he asked me for money, I gave him what I thought was reasonable and he immediately ended the conversation and looked for others to ask.

My train wound through high valleys filled with blossoming trees, half ruined Schloss, Hapsburg engineering and snow dusted crags. A great, cheap, transport of delight, enjoy it if you have the opportunity, remembering to ignore the mediocre food and concentrate on the good beer and spectacular rolling mise en scene.

I tottered off the train at Maribor, blearily found my way to the taxi rank, brought up my AirBnB address on my iPhone, kept myself awake for the five-minute journey. My host’s proxy greeted me and gave me the keys. I let myself in and fell onto the bed.