Early Years
Zlomislić was born to Croatian parents in the region of Vojvodina during World War II. His father was killed by the Nazis while fighting with the Yugoslav Partisans against the German occupation of Yugoslavia in late 1944. His mother, Rose, was shipped to Germany in 1943 to work as slave labour for the Nazis and Vilim was placed in an orphanage. In 1945, Rose was told that her son had been killed in an air raid. After the war, she met and married Frederick Andrews, a Canadian working for a United Nations agency in a German displaced persons' camp. The couple moved to Toronto.
Vilim remained at the orphanage and was a member of the Communist Young Pioneers in post-war Communist-ruled Yugoslavia. He suffered an accident during a camping trip and a botched operation on his leg left him limping and scarred for life.
His mother continued to search for him after the war through the assistance of the Red Cross which located Vilim in 1952 and brought him to Canada where he was re-united with his mother and re-Christened Donald Clarke Andrews.
In Canada, Andrews developed a strong antipathy for Communism which he blamed for his physical disability. After graduating from high school he began reading far right tracts by the John Birch Society and George Lincoln Rockwell and adopted far right and ultimately fascist ideas.
Read more about this topic: Don Andrews
Famous quotes containing the words early years, early and/or years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
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“Lonesome? God, no! From the day the kids are born, if it’s not one thing, it’s another. After all those years of being responsible for them, you finally get to the point where you want to scream: “Fall out of the nest already, you guys, will you? It’s time.””
—Anonymous Mother of Four. As quoted in Women of a Certain Age, by Lillian B. Rubin, ch. 2 (1979)