Giovanni Tanconi

"- Enthusiastic, full of strainght, we..we did not care, or how..how to describe it..there is no fear; i you go – you go! But in those days.. in those day at the border guards use to shoot. On every refuge, a lot of people got hurt. Istrians, Dalmatians especially them.. went toward Ancona, from the other side. They signal to us, but.. we did not know what fear is! Young people, do not have fear for anything! - How was the sea? - O, we have been lucky! So, in '56., you won ´t belive it, we came almost to Venice and the sea was like – oil! Without one wave! But „bura“ wind toward .. Chioggia.. across Venice came if you know what I mean. - (????) went down? - Yes, down..that time every now and then was..and boat was full of water, had to throw water with everithing on disposal, pants, clothes and we run into fishermans comming home who took us with them. - Picked you up to Venice? - The sea was unseen! Unseen! You can imagine. - You have been carried by a see current? - What? - When you start from Rovinj, you follow Trieste? - No, we´ve been following stars..even thou we are not astronomers or something.. through stars there, knew direction, Romi, Venice. Not following down, but in some way to Trieste, knew the see current will bring us down. - (third person): Venice is not directly positioned.. - Yes, it is not dir.. it is.. a little bit toward.. let say direction to Trieste, Trieste is here and Venice here. And (???). And we saw lihts from Venice. Seriously. - So you say, you saw the lights? - Yes! We were maybe 5-10 kilom... and it was foggy, in the morning. There is always foggy. A haze was present, yes... We saw Venice. And fisherman picked us up. - Where did they take you then? - In Trieste. - To Trieste? To San Sabbo? - No. - First took us ... to the police, and as not one of us had any documents, or identity card, because then nothing existed. So, as you are from Rovinj we were talking on italian ... will never forget, they gave us to eat, I eat „manestra“(a bean stue) like never in my life! Heheheh...first day. Then interrogation, from where you came from, name, surname... and then from police department took me to San Sabba. There we had a place to stay and everything else needed."

- ".. and behind my house, live here across... now can say it only on italian: ..and he escape with boat „batana“! That was ... that was crazy! Unbelievably! - Please, can we come back to your way of escape. What time of the year was? - It was ´56. - Not year, the time of the year, summer, fall, winter..? - It was July 31st . August 1st was in Italy. - How much time did you plan this escape? - It was spontaneously. Not like we … as we were already four years in the club, Rowing club Rovinj. And we never plan to escape but was … it was enough, we were full of …. poverty, hunger what ever you want. Decide to go away and goodbye. I didn´t tell my mother, or sister or my brot.. no one knew. After let them know I am safe and alive, that I came. - In the morning you woke up, meet your friends and decide tonight we go? - Yes and that was it! Corect! Just like that. My aunt Pina, as I have large family, (Stanković???) 600 of them in Rovinj.. in Istria. Only she and Luca gave me a piece of bread and short pants, that was all I had. Didn´t had any wine, or water or nothing. Hhhhh.. - Where is Paron Bello? What is this? - That was … something like .. pairs. As Rino, who died a while ago champions in Istria … Istrian coast. And, when we came to Italy, they return this boat to Yugoslavia. It was named Paron Bello. - Where was this boat? As we will need to take photo of .. - Here at Lokva a Rowing club was positioned. -(third person): .. I will show it to you. - Right where.. is now.. a bank Za.. - (third person): Privredna bank.. - ..Privredna bank, there was our club. - (third person): and one resident building is.. - There was an device, „zatara“ we called it, where we use to carrie boats, and then went around island Katarina...till the Hospital ... - Following ... - Yes, slowly. - So, you start in the evening? - It was 20:00 hours. Our company and the others .. rowers, where my friends were Yugoslavian champions, went on Bled, and we to escape. - Four of you? - Four of us. Then we change each other, two by two. - Tell us the itinerary, it means, who did you start, you start …? - Start from Delfin. - Did anyone ask you anything? - No one ask us, there were .. it was Zaharija and .. Romano Bratović. They pushed us, we passed by our fisherman, guards, fish.. Italian guards, Italian fisherman, and in front Venice was … 5-6 o clock in the morning, something like that, as we rowed for 10 hours. And they picked us up, and save us. Otherwise we would drown. These wind “bura” around Trieste, you know…."