In the middle of it are the trees under which my grandmother Zinka often sat with her two children decades ago. In her rucksack she often carried sandwiches, a thermos of coffee and some memories; not of Germany, but of Slovenska Bistrica and Slovenia. That was her (real) home. The only one she really felt. It was her world.
Zinka was a business secretary from Slovenska Bistrica, a mother of two children, a wife and a woman with deep roots that were rooted and flourished only in the soil of her home. Home was her greatest value. Together with her husband, they (re)built the house - wall by wall, hoping that memories and celebrations would grow there. But life had other plans. The credit they could no longer pay was beginning to suffocate them. Stress, debt, sleepless nights. Zinka did not run away, she fought. Like a mother. As a Slovenian. As a lioness, which was also her zodiac or horoscope.
When she decided to go abroad, it wasn't an ambition, it was a decision out of necessity. She did not want to have more, she just wanted to keep what she already had - the homeland that was embodied in that house, in the garden, in the vines by the fence, in the native language. She left with her two children, with a few savings and with unspeakable pain.
In Germany, neither her education nor her experience counted. There, you were what you could show, not what you carried. She washed cars, cleaned rich people's houses, ironed shirts, made coffee. Sometimes she was (mis)looked down upon. She was often silent. But she never let her pride be broken by strangers. She knew why she was there: to keep her home in Slovenska Bistrica from collapsing.
She enrolled her child in a German school. They learned German, but at home they spoke Slovenian. They sang songs from her childhood, baked cake, which was not made with the right ingredients, but smelled like home. Every morning in the park she sat under the same beech tree. Thoughtful, silent. She didn't feel at home there. Everything was tidy but empty. The streets were spotless, but without warmth. There were no old neighbours, no sound of church bells, no language to caress her soul.
She spent five years abroad. Five years of work, silence and immense missing. But she persevered. With every euro she paid back not only the loan, but also part of her conscience - because she had to leave. But in her heart, she never really left.
When she finally returned, it was a cloudy day, but the sun seemed to be shining. She hugged the familiar floor, breathed in the air and said, »Now I can breathe.« Slovenian Bistrica was not just her place, it was her foundation. It was her identity. Her homeland. And even though she spent five years serving in foreign homes, she belonged to only one - the one where she spoke the language and where she was a Zinka, not just a worker.
In recent years, she loved to sit in front of the house, looking at the distant hills of Pohorje and listening to the Slovenian word. She never spoke badly about Germany. She just said: »I am grateful to her. But abroad I just lived, here I (was) a human being.«
Zala Krupljan, 14 May 2025
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