In a break between rain and sunshine which took turns on this June day, we arrived at the hill where we were met by Zorica Zec at the gate. A refugee from Bosanska Krupa, she was exiled from her home in 1995, during Oluja (the Storm operation). She continued her life's late years in Sremski Karlovci. Continued living, while everything had been halted for her. She had a cosy home beneath the Grmec mountain, bountiful land, three cows, 77 sheep and a dog.

“The day that we had to flee, we didn't even get a chance to finish our lunch. All I took from my home is this box of matches. Not another single thing. We set all the animals free, an unleashed the dog, “ Zora wistfully tells Mrs.Radhilur from Iceland. The distance between Serbia and Iceland is great on the map, but all the miles converged into a single point, here in the shade beneath the vines surrounding this modest house. That is the kindness that inspired this artist from Iceland to knit 500 sweaters and to send them over to Sremski Karlovci through the Red Cross of Iceland, 21 years ago. The love with which she knit the patterns kept all those unfortunate strangers warm.

“I have two of these sweaters, one belonged to my husband who died last year, and one is my own. I wear them all winter, because they are very warm. When I wash one, I wear the other while the first is drying,” explains Zora. “I have saved them, because one should appreciate when one is gifted something.” Now Mrs. Radhilur is on the verge of tears, that is what kept her going while she was knitting the sweaters on her Island. Still, she could have never dreamed that they would mean so much to someone, and that they would keep their souls warm all these years.

“I am over 80 years old, and two of my sons and my daughter have also found refuge in Serbia. They have their families, and my late husband and I moved out here not to be in their way, so that they wouldn`t have to take care of us. I used to work in the fields for a wage while I could. All is well while one can move on their own, and is not a burden to others.”

The secretary of the Red Cross of Sremski Karlovci, Dragan Kljajic, brought some food over for this brave woman.

At the very end of this visit, Zora, who now also has a Serbian ID, said: “I only regret not being able to go back and see my house and land. I know it is all destroyed and covered in weeds, like the whole village. There are no more people left over there.”

Upon her return to her country on the island, Radhilur will always be taken over by fondness when she thinks about Zora.