21. MALARIA SCHIZONTS

After I recovered, I was not sent back to my unit, but to Internal Medicine Hospital 305. I quickly found my feet there. The head of the hospital was Dr Frane Bulić, who was surprised when I told him that I wasn’t a nurse but a laboratory technician.

My first professional assignment was to examine the blood of a patient suspected of having malaria. I prepared the blood smear for examination and told Dr Bulić that everything was ready for microscopic examination. As he didn’t come for quite some time, I put the slide under the microscope myself, opened the laboratory manual with its illustrations, and comparing what I saw with them, noticed something suspicious.

I hastily said: “I think there are malaria schizonts in the field of view.” He smiled strangely, and I immediately regretted having said it. The patient did indeed have malaria.

“You are the first laboratory technician in the army. Until now, we have only had nurses.”

That recognition meant more to me than a medal for bravery, because for a medal I could have lost my head or my leg.

* * *

The war ended on 9 May 1945, but my hospital and the Hygiene and Epidemiology Unit nevertheless made it as far as Zagreb. We stayed there for some time, and from there began making our way back, with longer stops in Pazova and Mladenovac, towards Niš, where the First Army was stationed.

Since there was no regular transport or communication, we travelled however we could — on foot and using various forms of local transport — and did not reach Niš until the beginning of November. It was almost winter. It was as if we had crossed the Salonika Front. It took us more than three months to travel from Zagreb to Niš.