The Keeper of Stories: Finding Peace with a Painful Family Legacy

Have you ever noticed how, in many families, certain roles just seem to ‘settle’ on someone? The organizer, the peacemaker, the one who remembers every birthday… and sometimes, the keeper of the heavy stories. The one entrusted, consciously or not, with the weight of the past. In my family, that role – the keeper of the deep, resonant pain from the Second World War, particularly from my mother’s side – seems to have found me.

Jasenovac: A Name That Still Sends Chills

Jasenovac is not just a name in a history book; it’s the place where my family’s world shattered. My grandmother, my great-grandmother, and my grandmother’s sister miraculously survived arriving at that concentration camp, only to be dispatched further because it was too crowded that horrific day. My great-grandfather was not so fortunate. He was killed that same day. Imagine the scene: the sudden, brutal severing of lives, the terror imprinted on those who survived, especially the children like my grandmother.

This became the unspoken inheritance. My father was born in the Croatian part of a village Velika Barna in Bilogora, and mother was born in the Serbian part of the same village, a place where, in her great-grandmother’s generation, most women found themselves widowed, their husbands lost to the horrors of Jasenovac concentration camp, forged in the furnace of the Ustaše regime, which established one of Europe’s most brutal racial states in 1941. Their 17 Principles declared only those “of Croat blood” deserved citizenship. Their vision was chillingly absolute: a Croatia purified of “racial enemies” through laws mirroring – yet surpassing – Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Codes in severity stripping Jews and Roma of all rights while defining Serbs as existential threats to Croatian purity .  

Growing up in that village till I was 4 years old, the echoes were everywhere, even if the stories weren’t always spoken aloud. As a young person, I did what felt natural: I ran. I ran far from those old tales, convinced they had nothing to do with ‘me’. Why carry this ancient burden? I built my life, moved forward.

Berlin: Where I Collided with Ghosts—and Found Healing

Then, in my mid-thirties, life took me to Berlin. And there, inevitably, I collided head-on with the ghosts of the Second World War. They aren’t whispers in Berlin; they are palpable, etched into the city. Walking its streets, the ghosts of my own family history began to stir, reappearing with startling clarity. The past I’d tried to leave behind wasn’t done with me.

But here’s the beautiful, unexpected twist. In Germany, the nation whose past was inextricably linked to this pain, I found profound healing. I met incredible people – second and third generations, like me – who were actively working to heal their own lineages. Germans grappling with the weight of their history, developing tools, sharing wisdom, creating spaces for understanding and reconciliation. They offered me tools, compassion, and a shared language for processing intergenerational trauma. Isn’t that a profound kind of alchemy? The descendants of those on opposite sides of history, meeting decades later, not in conflict, but in mutual support, helping each other carry the weight passed down.

Coming Home to Croatia—Only to Face the Past

This journey, and a deep pull towards roots, led me back to Croatia five years ago. Home is Croatia, that became clear. I returned successful, having built a life abroad, both professionally and personally. Yet, stepping back into the landscape was like stepping back in past time emotionally. The unresolved echoes of past wars were waiting. I realised I couldn’t truly live fully in the present while this past remained a raw, unvisited wound. Part of my return, part of claiming home, meant facing the epicenter of that family trauma. I knew I had to visit Jasenovac.

The Pilgrimage I Had to Make

Let me be clear: this was not a “fun trip.” It was a pilgrimage of necessity. I went with two dear friends, each carrying their own complex family histories tangled in the same war. One came from a family with Ustaše members, the other was the child of a Jewish lawyer. We arrived at the memorial site together, a silent pact of support, and then naturally split, each needing our own solitary space.

I wandered, the weight immense. Then I found it: a plexiglass panel etched with the names of the victims. And there, amidst the thousands, I found them. My family members. Seeing their names carved, acknowledged, made real in that somber place… it was a pivotal moment. A profound, heartbreaking validation. They were not forgotten statistics; they were here, remembered.

Walking the Train Tracks of Memory

Then I walked the path. A path deliberately constructed from train track hedges, leading towards Bogdan Bogdanović’s haunting monument, the “Stone Flower.” As you walk, you are forced to look down at your feet on these rails, step by deliberate step. It feels exactly like being on a slow, agonizing train ride. The train ride my grandmother would sometimes mention, her eyes still filled with a child’s terror decades later, describing the two or three days spent in that cattle car.

The heaviness in my chest, the suffocating grief carried in my very cells, felt overwhelming. But then, something miraculous happened. I entered the Stone Flower monument itself—a sanctuary of soaring concrete curves that felt like a primal embrace. And there, carved into the stone like a whispered prayer, were lines from Croatian poet Ivan Goran Kovačić’s Jama (The Pit):  

“Gdje je mala sreća, bljesak stakla,  

Lastavičje gnijezdo, iz vrtića dah;  

Gdje je kucaj zipke, što se makla,  

I na traku sunca zlatni kućni prah?”

“That simple happiness, the window’s glint, 

swallow and young, or windborne garden sweet- 

Where? The unhurried cradle’s drowsy tilt? 

Or by the threshold, sunshine at my feet.”

The Stone Flower’s Whisper: A Poet’s Defiance

Kovačić—a Croatian poet murdered in 1943—penned Jama while fleeing fascist forces. These specific lines don’t scream of violence; they mourn the obliterated poetry of ordinary life. The “window’s glint,” “windborne garden,” and “sunshine at my feet” are symbols of everything Jasenovac sought to erase: the quiet magic of home, safety, and belonging.  

Architect Bogdan Bogdanović chose them not to dwell on agony, but to reclaim humanity. As I stood there, breathing in the silence, I understood his genius:  

The train-track path forced me to descend into history’s darkness (like my grandmother’s cattle car).  

The monument’s womb-like space, inscribed with these verses, lifted me toward transcendence—where love outlives brutality.  

That “sunshine at my feet”? It’s the same fragile beauty your grandmothers carried through hell. “The unhurried cradle’s drowsy tilt” is the sound of doors they thought they’d never open again. Kovačić’s words didn’t just describe loss; they resurrected the ordinary light my family fought to preserve.  

In that moment, the inflammation in my chest didn’t vanish—it transformed. The heaviness became a tender ache: not just for what was taken, but for what stubbornly endured. The swallows still nest. Gardens still sigh. And dust still dances in sunbeams, even where shadows linger. 

Why My Body Still Remembers What My Mind Wants to Forget

This journey continues. I delve into Peace Studies at the Center for Peace Studies in Zagreb, constantly exploring: What is my role now with this heritage? How do I carry it? At 50, I’m no longer running. But let’s be honest: it’s still tender. Talking or even thinking deeply about it can feel like touching an inflammation. In group discussions about WWII, especially with younger generations who often see it purely as historical information, I sometimes feel like the only one whose body reacts viscerally – a racing heart, a tightness, a deep somatic disturbance. This history lives in my body, a legacy passed down through generations, even though I never lived through those times. The task now is transformation.

The Keeper’s Task: To Tend the Wounds, Not Just Inherit Them

My 25-year path studying Buddhism and meditation? It didn’t arise in a vacuum. In large part, it grew from this very heritage, from the ancestors whispering (or shouting) their need for peace. It was a tool I sought to manage the weight they entrusted, perhaps unconsciously, to me.

And so, I come back to the wisdom I’ve learned, both from my practice and from facing the Stone Flower: Beautiful lotus flower emerges from the mud. From the darkest, most painful soil, resilience can take root, understanding can blossom, and yes, even profound beauty can manifest. The mud of our painful past doesn’t have to define us, but acknowledging it, tending to it, and finding ways to transform its energy is the sacred task of the keeper. It’s a heavy gift, this role, but also a profound one – a call to heal, remember, and ultimately, to help cultivate a more peaceful present from the fractured soil of the past. The journey continues, step by step, breath by breath, carrying the stories with a newfound, tender courage.