Couple Lives in War and Peace

For many international couples, the biggest challenges they face are language and cultural differences. But for Dragica and Takeshi, an international couple who escaped from a region scarred in one of the most violent chapters of Recent European history, their biggest challenge was simply staying alive amid the bombs and bullets.

"We first met through some of my female Japanese friends in October 1991 at a party in London, and our first date was in Holland a few months later," says Dragica, who comes from Croatia. "We talked a little bit, but I didn't expect I was going to one day marry him! He was kind and sent me some letters. We were friends first, but step by step it became love."

After spending five years living in Britain during the war in the former Yugoslavia, Dragica went to Belgrade in August 1995 where her family had fled as refugees from Croatia. "Takeshi continued to send letters to me and he also came to visit me twice in Belgrade before we decide to get married there in May 1997. Our wedding was small, but we were happy to finally be together."

Despite now having settled comfortably in Japan, the decision to live in the country was definitely difficult. "Takeshi was always saying that he would not return to live in Japan, so we spent from 1997 until 1999 living in Belgrade in the former Yugoslavia," Dragica says. Takeshi left Yugoslavia in May 1999 during the bombing of Serbia that took place in response to the massive expulsion of ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo that same year.

"The political situation became difficult under Slobodan Milosevic and we experienced bombings in Belgrade six years ago," Dragica recalls. "Our Japanese friend was pregnant at the time and gave birth to a baby on the same day as a bomb attack, and had to go home immediately after she delivered the baby in the hospital. I remember when we were listening to the radio and sirens with her two-day-old newborn baby hiding in the basement. Her child now has a speaking problem."

Because of the war, the Japanese embassy was urging all Japanese to leave the country as soon as possible, so Takeshi and the Japanese woman with the newborn baby left by car toward Croatia. "Takeshi's plan was to come back to Belgrade, but it was impossible to enter Yugoslavia, so he went back to Japan but came back three months later to pick me and our son up." The couple arrived in Japan in September 1999.

"I like Japan very much. I am very grateful to be here and live in peace," Dragica says about her new life in Japan. "When I came to live in Japan we had our young baby boy Hiroki. At first we stayed together with Takeshi's family. His family has a barber shop and they were busy all day and my responsibility was to take care of baby and the house. It was difficult to study Japanese and raise the baby at the same time. Takeshi wants me to go to school to study Japanese, but because Hiroki was still small I just studied at home by myself."

Describing highlights of their relationship, Dragica says Takeshi is a good father who likes to take their children shopping, to kindergarten and the park. "But I think he spoils our children with toys, and children make it hard for me because they want to buy toys every day and the shops are far from where we are living now. But children always create light and hope in our lives."