Slovakia, Europe.
Lilia.
Dear Wala Hassan Usa,
I was born in 1927, on October 12th. I come from Stará Ľubovňa, Slovakia. It's a town off the north of Europe. It's the current day 1939, March 21st. Ocko (papa) has started to talk like a crazy madman, talking about mamička (mama) not coming home early. I ask him "Ale táta by mohla byť v prevádzke." (But dad maybe she's just in traffic) He gets angry and looks at me pissed off. He then slaps me and yells "Dont si uvedomujete, čo sa deje na, kurva?" (Don't you realize what's happening, whore?) I hold my cheek and suck it up. "Ospravedlňuj sa otec." (I'm sorry dad) he huffs and shakes his head. He then opens his arms, grabbing and pulling me into him . "Príďte sem zlato. Prepáč." (come here sweetie. Im sorry.) He slightly whispers in crisp English "I can't lose you too, princezná," but I don't understand so I squeezed him tight. That is when I realized things were completely serious. It was only the beginning of the Hungarian war that would wipe out my family.....bude to koniec.
It has been a couple of mesiaca (months) after the war began and me and Ocko have now ended up in a shelter with a couple travelers and families. We've been moving along the roads of Terish to keep away from all of it. The war just seems to be getting worse each day. We lost our house when mamička died so that's the reason on why were "homeless," as Ocko calls it. She is the owner, well was, of the house but it became up for grabs and since the war began soldiers needed a place to stay. So it was us out and them in.
We had only been affected in which soldiers from Germany had almost killed us but we weren't "that important." Slovakia sadly was corrupted and forced to give up a part of us. It hurt deeply when Ocko told me this, him reading his scraps of news bits when he found out. My home was being tangled and tossed with, through a violence of authority and power. It stroke our country deep and left a distant presence of anger forever.
We decided, me and Ocko, that we will move to safety for mamička and ourselves.
