Eva Panić Nahir, who inspired the character of Vera, was a well-known and admired figure in Yugoslavia. She is the subject of a monograph and a biography, as well as a Serbian television series conceived by author Danilo Kiš, in which she recounted the horrors of Goli Otok. That was the first time the public was exposed to the history of Tito’s gulags, which had been silenced and denied up until then. Eva became a symbol of almost superhuman courage, epitomizing the capacity to sustain one’s humanity under the harshest conditions.
Eva first told me her life story more than twenty years ago, and repeated it many times since. She and I developed a profound friendship. It was impossible not to like her, and not to be in awe of her power and humanity. It was also difficult, at times, not to balk at her principled and hermetic rigidity. She wanted me to write her story, and that of her daughter, Tiana Wages. One of the most precious gifts of this book was my acquaintance with Tiana’s wisdom, optimism, and bravery. Both women were generous enough to grant me the freedom to tell the story but also to imagine and invent it in ways it never existed. For this—for the liberty of imagination and invention—I thank them from the bottom of my heart.
My gratitude also goes to the author and translator Dina Katan Ben-Zion, who guided me when it came to the Serbian and Croatian languages and their echoes in Vera’s Hebrew.
To the filmmakers Dan Wolman and Ari Folman. To Elinor Nechemia, continuity girl and script supervisor. Profound thanks to my friend the director and film scholar Aner Preminger for his help and devotion. Thanks to close friends and family members who read the manuscript and offered suggestions and improvements. They all gave generously from their time and experience. Any errors in the book, on any topic, are mine alone.
I thank my guides on my journey to the Arctic region, and those who joined me on my travels to Goli Otok, above all my sharp, opinionated friend the historian Hrvoje Klasić.
The family of Rade Panić, Eva’s first husband, hosted me warmly in his birth village. The small but cohesive club of Eva’s fans in Belgrade—Tanja and Aleksandar Kraus, Vanja Radovanović and Planinka Kovačević—welcomed me and revived past times for me.
Thank you to Eva’s beautiful family: Emily Wages, Yehudit Nahir, and the illuminating Smadar “Smadi” Nahir. Profound gratitude to the directors Dr. Macabit Abramson and Prof. Avner Faingulernt, for their moving film, Eva.
For their generous assistance, I thank Seid Serdarević, my Croatian publisher, and Gojko Bozovic, my Serbian publisher.
Thanks to Ženi Lebl for her wonderful book, The White Violet (Ha’sigalit Ha’levana, Am Oved, 1993), and to Aleksandra Ličanin, who wrote Two Loves and One War of Eva Panić Nahir and led me through Eva’s childhood streets in Čakovec.
And of course thanks to Dr. Van de Velde, author of Ideal Marriage, and Prentice Mulford, author of “The Law of Marriage,” both of which appeared in a joint volume translated into Hebrew by M. Ben-Yosef, whose words are quoted here (and yes, it is a real book).
The facial expressions of everyone I spoke to on this journey seemed to change when they spoke of Eva. Her vigorous, turbulent spirit and her uncompromising personality, at once tender and absolute, live on palpably, four years after her death, in anyone who was fortunate enough to know her.
David Grossman
February 2019