ON THE RIGHT TRACK

ON THE RIGHT TRACK

Among the teachers who were sent by the People’s Republic of Macedonia’s Ministry of Education, to teach in the Macedonian language primary schools that operated in the children’s homes, was also Liubomir Galevski. He was a qualified and educated teacher especially trained in the arts of teaching. Even though he was designated to teach in Voivodina, instead of going there he was sent to Osiek. The reason for this was because he was good at disciplining disobedient students, particularly girls. He was sent to Osiek to take care of the problems they were having with the refugee children. This is what he said:

“In August 1949 there was a lot of anger among the children in the children’s home in Osiek. This anger was primarily a result of the already aggravated Informburo situation during a time when a fierce propaganda campaign was waged against Yugoslavia on one hand, and the impact the Greek teachers (two male and one female) were having on the students in Osiek, on the other. Let’s just say that, at

that time, the home in Osiek housed 107 children, of which 86 were Macedonian girls and 21 were Greek girls. They refused to eat and constantly revolted... The problem was particularly exacerbated when a group of them refused to eat and dumped their food on the street. This caused a justified reaction in the citizens who were not particularly happy about such behaviour and complained bitterly to the home administration and to other authorities in Osiek. The Yugoslav Red Cross and the People’s Republic of Macedonia’s Ministry of Education were also informed of this. But what surprised me the most was that during every meeting I had to convince the girls not to do what they were doing, they all spoke Greek. But the majority of them here in Osiek were Macedonians. However on one occasion, quite unexpectedly, a girl named Dimana spoke Macedonian. It was a happy sign that she admitted that she could no longer stand to speak Greek and that all the girls in the facility spoke Macedonian but were afraid to do so because they were threatened with punishment by the Greek teachers. After she spoke up they realized that their fears were unfounded and since then everything went in a positive direction. Subsequently, threats made by the Greek teachers were ignored and the girls continued to speak only in their native Macedonian language and accepted discipline...”

After this unfortunate negative situation was resolved, according to Liubomir Galevski, a number of children were sent to other children’s homes in the other Yugoslav Republics including Bela Tsrkva, Krani and Skopje, where they continued their education learning a trade. After that Liubomir Galevski was sent to work at the Steniavats School in Zagreb. The local home housed 47 male refugee children who continued their education learning a trade at the “Iedinstvo” factory. But their story does not end here. The children from the Steniavats School, along with Liubomir Galevski, were moved to the children’s home in Samobor where Galevski resumed his work as a teacher.