The search for a family divided by the iron curtain

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/dec/07/search-family-divided-iron-curtain

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Bob Bishton knelt at the grave and placed the letter where it couldn't be missed. On it were written a few lines in three languages, and they were left in the hope that his mother's long-lost family would see it and get in touch. His journey had brought him 1,210 miles from Birmingham to Pula, a city on the Adriatic coast. He'd known little about his mother's family – he'd never met anyone from the old country. He only knew their names. All his life he'd had questions but few answers, just hints and snippets about another, perhaps more exotic, upbringing, from his mother, Emilia, an Italian exile in Birmingham since the second world war.

Emilia met his father, Ted, a British army driver, in 1945 when he was stationed on the Istrian peninsula. She was a cook in the officer's mess; he was delivering supplies to the kitchen.

Ted and Emilia were a sociable couple and loved to entertain friends and neighbours. Bob remembers his mother spending all day making her own pasta for huge convivial Italian dinners, rolling out the dough on the kitchen table. So popular were these evenings – as was Emilia's cooking – that Bob says people would be sitting on the stairs to eat.

He has many warm memories of growing up in Birmingham with his parents. But whenever conversation strayed into details about his mother's family in Italy, a barrier went up. "I remember hearing Mum and Dad talking about whether she would be allowed to go back. Mum said, 'They will never let me.' Then they switched to Italian – which they did when they didn't want me to hear what was said."

So Bob, 63, only picked up fragments about his mother's early life. She was born on the outskirts of Pula, on the Istrian peninsula, at that time part of Italy. Both her parents were dead by the time Emilia was 17 and she was very close to her six older siblings.

The end of the second world war brought complications to Istria: after the Italian surrender it was embroiled in conflict between Nazi forces and Yugoslav partisans. One brother, Romano, was killed – for Emilia, it was always too painful to talk about.

Once the Allies took control of the area in 1945, Emilia started working as a cook on the army base and that's when she met her husband to be. "Dad had been in Italy for about a year so he spoke some Italian when he met Mum," says Bob. "He just adored her and felt the same all their lives."

The couple married near Venice, in 1947. Bob has a photograph of the pretty Italian and her handsome British husband walking along the waterfront. It's a joyous image. But the reality of Italy at the time was not happy. The devastation was such that rather than waiting for her husband to be demobbed, Emilia travelled across Europe alone to join Ted's family in Birmingham. She took only a few clothes, her marriage certificate and a statement from the Pula authorities, giving her permission to leave.

Emilia had little English but, by chance, her new father-in-law had close Italian friends and could speak the language. "It must have been a big comfort," says Bob. "Joe helped Mum to learn English and they always had a strong bond. But the whole family welcomed her with open arms."

Two months later, Ted got out of the army and joined her in the Midlands. Emilia had found a job as a cleaner on the Birmingham buses. Ted returned to driving, on building sites.

The couple settled down into a happy domestic life and were thrilled when Bob was born in 1950. But behind Emilia's beautiful smile, there was sadness. One of Bob's early memories is standing in the post office while Emilia bought airmail envelopes and notepaper. She wrote hundreds of letters to the family she missed so desperately, hoping one day to hear back. She couldn't go to Pula because international borders had been redrawn in 1947 – the city had been renamed Pola and was in communist Yugoslavia.

Six times Emilia applied for a visa and six times she was refused – the application was not looked on favourably because she'd left of her own accord to live in England.

"I'd sometimes overhear a conversation or see her distressed and know it was to do with not being able to go and see her brothers and sisters," says Bob. "I didn't fully understand, but I knew it caused Mum a lot of pain. Over time, you avoid talking about it."

Emilia never received a single reply from the hundreds of letters she wrote to her family. Nor did she ever know if any of her letters even reached them. She died in 1979, long before the iron curtain came down and travel restrictions were lifted. She'd been without contact with them for three decades.

"I'm Birmingham born and bred but knowing so little about Mum's background and family, it always felt as if a piece of my life was missing," says Bob.

He retired early to look after his wife, Anita, who has multiple sclerosis, and when she was offered a week's respite care, it was time to act. Initial inquiries at the Croatian embassy – Pula is now in Croatia – yielded nothing. The Catholic church couldn't help either. So Bob booked a flight and set off on his quest in person with Pete Belk, a friend and neighbour, for company. "I didn't have high hopes. I imagined my family had fled to Italy after the war and it would be impossible to trace them. I just wanted to see where Mum came from."

All Bob had to go on was an address – the old family home – his mother's birth certificate and the names of her siblings. The street number was 63 and, with the help of a taxi driver, Bob found 61, 62 and 64. There was no number 63; just an empty plot. But a neighbour directed them to the cemetery. Among hundreds of graves, they found the Italian section – and a headstone with a familiar name on it. "I saw the name Niegovan. All the names were in Croatian, but recognisable as the names of my uncles and aunts," says Bob.

There were fresh flowers on the grave, too. Someone else had been there – and recently. "It felt surreal because it was the first physical evidence of my family. It didn't hit me emotionally straight away.

"When I got home, I went straight to the cemetery where Mum and Dad are buried. I touched the lettering on Mum's name and whispered, 'I've found them, Mum.'"

Bob had to go back to care for Anita. But he had a plan. He would return to Pula with a note in English, Italian and Croatian and leave it at the grave in the hope that the person who had laid the flowers would get in touch.

In Birmingham, a Croatian barber helped translate his appeal. The note explained that Bob was Emilia Niegovan's son and gave contact details. A year after his first visit, Bob took the note to the grave – again there were fresh flowers and his spirits soared.

Ten days later, a letter with a Croatian postmark arrived at Bob and Anita's. "Bob picked it up but his hands were shaking so much that he couldn't open it," says Anita. "I said – 'Love, you've found your family.'"

It was from the granddaughter of one of Bob's aunts, Wanda Quagliato, who lives in Australia, but was visiting Pula. She enclosed contact details, including a phone number for Bob's cousin Walter, who lives in Pula and speaks fluent English. "We were laughing and crying – it was beyond anything we could have imagined or hoped for," says Anita.

Bob rang Walter that day. It was a warm and easy conversation, sharing their amazement at finding each other.

Bob went back to Pula to meet them. "As I arrived at the airport, I could see them waiting for me – Walter, Wanda and Walter's daughter, Paola. I knew instantly they were my family. We look very alike and the bond was instant. We all opened our arms and hugged each other."

Before his search, Bob had never been to that part of the world. Now, surrounded by his relatives, he felt wholly, surprisingly at home. As they got to know each other, they felt able to ask the more difficult questions, the ones unanswered for so long. "They asked if Mum had been happy. I said yes – Dad's family embraced her and took great care of her throughout her life. Then they asked why she had never written or come back. I said she'd written hundreds of letters and kept trying to go home but could not get a visa at that difficult time during the communist rule. Our reunion was too late for Mum but now, at least, her family know that she never, ever forgot them."

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