Nase Novine, May 05, 1982

              Adamic has been commended for his
humanism on many occasions. His conce-rn
for his fellow man is evident in each
book and each word he wrote.
i', Native Land, published in 1943, is 'hr
story of Yugoslavia under the Axis domina-tion.
In this book Adamic's political
opinions are most evident. He is extremuly
critical of governments and statesmen on
the whole. He goes beyond the basic
problems in the Balkans and deals with the
issues that the world had to face at that
particular time. He tends to do this
through the use of personal stories. He
tells a personal story abaout people and
then enlarges it, going from the specific to
the general.
He compares his village life in 1932
when he returned to the situation in 1942
when he wrote The Natives Return. He
talks about a young couple killed by
Italian forces. The incident is an allegory
of the youths personifying the future, the
intellectual forces destroyed by ignorance
and the almost Barbarian attitude of
Fascism. Another story was entitled "One
Man's Sacrifice". Briefly, there had, been
some action by the Partisans and the
Germans said they would kill ten Serbs per
day until the assassin was caught. There is
a man in the story who sacrificed himself
in order to save the community.
He was a very mild mannered individual
who couldn't possibly kill a German but he
decided to sacrifice himself to save the
hostages. The decision was wholly and
solely his own. He didn't even know these
people. Why he make such a sacrifice?
Adamic goes on to discuss the German
technique of depopulizing the population.
The Nazis believed them systematically as
was done with the Jews. A minor excuse
was, "Will, you killed one of us, we'll kill
ten of you per day until the guilty party
owes up". In his opinion, it was better to
kill one than ten. A brigade of guerilla
fighters was formed in the mountain
banded together under his name to
perpetuate it.
He had a very touching segment in his
book, called "The Dying Guerilla's Testa-ment"
about a young fellow recently
married who writes a letter to his unborn
child. He writes this letter about the future
and why he's fighting so hard to make a
better society, a better world. He doesn't
realize that his wife has been killed by the
Germans and his child will never be born.
These types of sympathetic stories appear
thoughout the book.
Yugoslavia officially-collapse- d April 17,
1941 and the country was divided up. The
talians were given Nontenegro and Dalma
tia (the Coast of Croatia). The Italians also
took southeast Slovenia, which borders on
Italy. The Germans wanted to reduce the
population so the Serbs, Croats and
Slovenes couldn't recover after the war.
They would use as many as they could for
slave labour. They would just exterminate
anyone who wasn't useful.
It was very important that the Yugoslavs
couldn't reorganize. They couldn't have
any sort of economic, political or cultural
life. It took a while for the Yugoslav people
to realize what the plan was. To prevent
Partisans from uniting, the Nazi's played
up all the ancient rivalry and bitterness
that had existed between the various
regions in Yugoslavia. Thev ordered wides-pread
massacres of Croatians and blamed
it on the Serbs. Adamic uses a quote in the
book that is supposed to come from Hitler
saying that he would put a river of blood
between the Serbian and Croatian people
so they would never, ever unite. Not only
did they kill people, they also wanted them
to hate and fear each other. This way there
would be no possibility of a concentrated
action against Nazis by the occupies
country. Their plan was to make the land
"German for Me.". They wanted to create
living space for the German people and
their families. They would kill off the
native inhabitants and relocate German
families. People began dying of starvation
and disease by the end of 1941. From
1941—43 the Nazi and Italian forces
levelled to the ground over 200 towns and
killed off an estimated population of 1
milion, 500 thousand persons. The occu-pying
forces wanted to impress Rome and
Berlin of what they could do. Their attitude
was the more Serbs they killed now, the
fewer they would have to cope with later.
In My Native Land Adamic spends a lot
of time talking about the atirosties
perpetrated on the Yugoslav people by me
Germans and the Italians. Vicious acts of
retaliation occurred such as if an Italian
was shot by the guerillas the village would
be burned. In Slovenia under the Germans,
Priests were treated worse than any other
people.
This book chronicles man's inhumanity
and the disaster that is bred from
intolerance and prejudice. Adamic's con-cern
for the future of mankind can be noted
in his telling of the mental and verbal duel
between Winston Churchill and F.D.
Roosevelt during the early part of World
War II. The attitudes and antagonisms of
these two statesmen can be observed by
reading Dinner at the White House (1946).
It begins with Louis Adamic and his wife
Stella, being invited to dine with President
and Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House on
Tuesday, January 13, 1942. In October of
1941, Adamic published a book called Two
Way Passage which interested Mrs. Roo-sevelt.
She read the book and wished to
discuss it with him. This was one of the
reasons they were invited to the White
Hoi se. One of the other guests for dinner
was the Prime Minister of Great Britain,
Winston Churchill.
Adamic's social and political philosop-hies
were diametrically opposed to Chur-chill
was an "Empire Builder". Adamic
thought many Americans were anti-Britis- h.
He takes for example, the large Irish
Catholic groups, the German element
which was also very large in society and
the negros who didn't like the British
colour policy. Churchill was given a copy
of Adamic's book, Two Way Passage to
read. In the latter part of the book, Adamic
has -- a plea for a united world and he
wondered what Churchill would think of
this Utopian idea. Adamic feels Churchill's
morality, integrity and honour are bound
up in the empire system. He is a Tory
imperialist patriot prepared to do absolutel-y
anything in order to perpetuate what he
believes to be good (for Great Britain). His
personality encompasses the tradition and
ethos of. the British Empire and all the
blundering and crime that went with it. In
any other nation's code of right or wrong,
he thinks that Churchill feels Great Britain
and the empire come first. If you save
Great Britain and the empire, you are
saving the world. Churchill's empirical
purposes don't begin and end with the
Axis powers. When he sizes up Churchill
in this way, he feels that his ideas at the
end of Two Way Passage, Churchill would
consider to be nonsense. Churchill told
Adamic he read his book and he thought it
was interesting, that it opened up new
vistas. Adamic feels Churchill doesn't
want any new vistas opened up, not the
kind of vistas that would spell the end of
civilization as he believes in and he is
willing to fight for, which he is out to
conquer.
He compares the two leaders, Roosevelt
and Churchill and in his opinion he fells
that Roosevelt wanted to be identified with
the common man and doesn't think this
would go over well with Winston Churchill.
P-'osev-elt's
New Deal (spread of democra-cy)
wouldn't sit well with Churchill.
Churchill doesn't want the new deal
expanded to India, the Balkans or any
other place where the British Empire is in
control. He doesn't like the idea of being
friend to the underdog. Roosevelt doesn't
know the common man in the colonies. He
can ameliorate the colour problem in
M;ssissippi but can't understand what
British fact in Asia and Africa. Adamic says
tho issue between them was liberalis
versus conquest. Churchill wanted conqu-est,
Roosevelt wanted liberation. Adamic
felt that if Roosevelt came out on top it
would be a miracle. Roosevelt had to come
out on top because too much depended on
him for him to fail. Adamic thought these
two men had entirely too much power
between them. The whole future of the
world depended on these two individuals.
That was too much power for anyone to
have.
Louis Adamic was a great believer in
personal growth everywhere, for everyone,
regardless of race, religion or colour. In his
writings he expresses the right of each
individual to have a good life in terms of
food shelter, clothing, education, etc. He
also is critical of statesmen. Leaders
should be elected who carry out the wiches
of the people. The political, economic and
social system should be geared for
meeting the crisis of the future, certainly
not to satisfy the selfish ambition of a few.
Productive friendly relations with other
countries must be promoted. He proposed
a United Nations — One World idea. The
simple final alternative — One World or No
World.