The paragraph below appeared in today's (1999.05.29) Globe & Mail:
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| It was near the Varadinski that occupying Hungarian |
| fascists killed 4,000 Jews, Gypsies and others and shoved|
| their bodies through holes in the frozen river, a tragedy|
| commemorated by a waterside monument. |
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With the bridges went normal life
Novi Sad residents are now forced to cross the Danube in
ferries, barges and small boats
by MARCUS GEE
Saturday, May 29, 1999
The Globe & Mail

In Novi Sad -- At 5:05 a.m. on April 1, Dubravka Valic was jolted from her
sleep by a huge explosion. Her husband, Mila, jumped out of bed and ran up
to the roof of their apartment building to see what had happened. "It's the
bridge," he said, bursting into the bedroom. "They've hit the bridge."

It was the beginning of the end of normal life for the Valics and the
300,000 people of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia's second-biggest city and a major
target for NATO air attacks.

Over the next four nights, planes dropped bridge-busting, precision-guided
explosives on the city's two other bridges, leaving the city divided and
traumatized.

Residents now traverse the swift-flowing, silty brown Danube in a flotilla
of ferries, barges and small boats that carry 25,000 people a day from side
to side. Even the sick have to travel by boat. Ambulances deposit emergency
cases at the quay side to be carried across by stretcher, then picked up by
another ambulance and taken to the city's major hospital, which is on the
less-populous right bank.

Ordinary people can wait up to two hours for a ride across, most packed
shoulder to shoulder on flat barges pushed by small boats.

"We cross the river now like we did in the 19th century," said Mr. Valic, a
burly engineer with a salt-and-pepper beard.

It's not just the inconvenience that rankles. The three bridges of Novi Sad
were symbols of the city's history and progress, and residents feel they
have lost three old friends. "All our beautiful bridges are broken," said
Ms. Valic, a journalism instructor with round glasses that give her an
owlish look. "We were very sentimental about them."

The bridge that was bombed near their apartment, the Varadinski Bridge, was
an imposing iron structure built in 1928. This was its third death. It was
destroyed by the Germans in 1941, rebuilt, then destroyed again by the
Allies in 1944. German prisoners of war rebuilt it after the war, and it was
a city landmark until last month. Now it lies shattered in the river as the
water swirls around its iron girders.

It was near the Varadinski that occupying Hungarian fascists killed 4,000
Jews, Gypsies and others and shoved their bodies through holes in the frozen
river, a tragedy commemorated by a waterside monument.

Everyone knows about the huge chunk of concrete that flew up from the
Zezeyev Bridge when the bombs hit and landed in a apartment block several
blocks away. Miraculously, no one was killed.

And everyone tells about the local hero who saved nine people who were on
the Zezeyev when the bombs came down at 7 p.m. on April 5. One was on a
bike, one was on foot and the rest were in cars that plunged into the river.
The man pulled them into his fishing boat.

After they finished off the bridges, NATO warplanes returned to hit
government buildings, radio towers, power plants and -- again and again --
the city's oil refinery. It has been bombed 12 times so far.

In all, there have been 150 explosions in the more than two months of
bombing. Mr. Valic has been sleeping in his clothes since the beginning, and
for the first two weeks he wore his shoes, too, in case of the need for a
quick escape. In his vest he keeps money, keys and a cellular phone.

The pressure of nightly bombardment is taking its psychological toll on the
family. The other day Ms. Valic gave her nine-year-old son a swat when he
quarrelled with his brother. "She never would have done that in normal
circumstances," Mr. Valic said.

Like most Yugoslavs, the Valics are angry and bewildered by the NATO
bombing. What makes them doubly angry is that they oppose the man NATO is
trying to stop: President Slobodan Milosevic. So do most other residents.
The city's mayor is from an opposition party and only six of the 70 local
councillors are from Mr. Milosevic's party.

Novi Sad is a city of many nationalities living in relative harmony, so the
Serbian nationalism of many politicians does not play well here. A part of
the Austro-Hungarian Empire until 1918, the city boasts that it remained
free for hundreds of years while most of Serbia was ruled by the Turks.
Today, lectures at the university are taught in four languages: Hungarian,
Serbian, Romanian and Slovakian.

"I cannot understand why we deserve this," Ms. Valic said. "What have we
done?"

To defuse their fear and anger, people here often turn to humour. Ms. Valic
tells a joke about a woman who covers her mouth every time she hears an
air-raid siren. "Why are you doing that?" the woman's husband asks. "Because
the dentist just put a bridge in my mouth," she replies.

Novi Sad shops used to sell postcards showing the city's Petrovaradin
Citadel, the "Gibraltar of the Danube." Now the cards show pictures of three
downed bridges.

"Greetings from Novi Sad," says the caption on one card; "the only place
where the Danube flows over the bridges."