SLOVENIA'S 5 CORE VALUES

In the middle of the back row stands Lojze Klokočovnik. He is wearing a grey cardigan and an oversized collar. 

He showed me the photo one afternoon when I visited him. We were sitting in the kitchen, smelling of coffee, with the soft autumn sun shining through the window. He looked at the picture, then at me, and said, »That's me on the first day of school.« He smiled that calm, quiet smile of his that everyone knows who has ever heard him talk about the old days.

The photo was taken in September, when he first crossed the threshold of the Dušan Jereb Primary School in Slovenske Konjice. At first glance, there is nothing special about that photo. It is just children, barely seven years old. But for him, it is more than a picture. It is the beginning of everything. The beginning of a new chapter in his life.

»That was the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere,« he said quietly, tracing the edge of the photo with his finger. »You know, we didn't have much, but we had each other.«

He recalled how the older students sang a song that day. »Welcome, little ones, to our midst,« the words echoed through the gym. Although he was frightened at the time, he felt something warm inside him - as if others had embraced him without touching him. Belonging. He couldn't name it then, but he felt it.

He told me that their teacher, Maria, said to all the pupils at the end of the day, »You will leave this school one day, but a part of you will stay here.« He did not understand those words as a child, but he understands them all too well today.

In the photo, he sees classmates with whom he shared his childhood. All the little things that childhood brings: first smiles, first fights, wet feet after playing in the yard. He remembers John, who was always late and laughing before class even started. Metka, who lent everyone a pencil. Andrew, who could draw anything but never wanted to compete. They were all part of the same story.

When I listened to him, he spoke calmly and without embellishment. »You know,« he said after a short pause, »at school you learn more than just letters, numbers and lessons. You learn that you are not alone. That the world is not yours, but ours.«

He found the photo by chance; among old correspondence cards and certificates. His hand shook when he held it - not with age, but with memories. Suddenly he was that child again, with the oversized collar and eyes full of questions.

On the back of the picture is the date 3 September 1972, written in pencil, and underneath is a tiny inscription: 'The first day we became. When I read that, I felt something in my chest shift. Maybe because I understood what these words meant. Maybe because I also knew at that moment that this was not just a photograph, but a personified sense of belonging.

When I was leaving, Lojze put the photo on the shelf next to the radio. He looked at it again and said. We knew how to be together then.» I didn't answer. I didn't have to. Because I knew that sometimes one old photograph says more about life than all the words in the world.

As I walked through the door and the cold air engulfed me, I thought that people are leaving, photographs are fading, schools are changing, but belonging remains. Because true belonging is not written in buildings and walls, but in the hearts of those who have ever learned together, dreamed together and believed that the world begins right there - in the classroom, where you first feel at home.

Zala Krupljan, 24 Oct 2025