Right, Left and Centre: The Politics of Some Canadians by Dave Jaffe - Part Three.

      Right, Left and Centre - Part Three by Dave Jaffe; Taking Aim At Soviet Medicare


        "My son is busy," says Milan about his 22 year old son Clayton. And Clayton is surely busy. He's proving that the Soviet medicare system mistreats its patients and doesn''t provide decent care to everybody.
    It was all part of a 1988 social studies project at a local university. A short, dark, handsome man, Clayton remembers his father's talks about growing up in Yugoslavia. Milan came of age in Yugoslavia right at the end of World War Two. In 1945 Yugoslavia was surely no paradise. A brutal ciivil war erupted in 1940 when German and Italian troops occupied the country.
    Croats and Serbians butchered each other while German and Italian armies killed communists and right wing nationalists who resisted their invasion. At war's end over 7 per cent of the population was dead, killed in the conflict. The country's new leader,was Tito. Born Josip Broz, Tito led his army to a victory over the invaders and the right wing Croats. Tito was a communist who ruled his country, especially at the beginning of his time in power, with an iron hand.
     He tried also to downplay the terrible ethnic wars that had killed so many Croats and Serbs. "I never knew Tito's ethnic background," Milenka, another former Yugoslav citizen said. "And I don't think too many other people knew it either." Tito tried to forge a nation out of the country's hate-hardened groups. But it was a tough job and Tito's methods were harsh.
    After the war ended, the communist rulers herded hundreds of thousands of people into labour camps. The camp's resident were anti-communists, pro-Nazis and others. About 700,000 Yugoslavs died in these camps. Milan escaped to the west and after quite a journey, ended up in Canada. At last he made his way to Vanncouver. A hard working man, Milan set up his own construction company and flourished in the 1960's and after. He married Maria, another refugee from communism. She grew up in the German Democratic Republic or what came to be called 'East Germany'.
      Many of Maria's childhood memories were of long days in cold drafty schools. Sher would return by foot to a crowded apartment where her four member family survived on porridge and potatoes. "It was terrible," Maria said about her life in the GDR years later. "It was a nightmare."
     Milan and Maria soon had a family of themselves and their two children, Clayton and Teresa. As soon as they turned 15 both of them ended up working in their father's company.Their mother Maria told the children, "We work hard here. You must go out and help your father." Clayton learned to do drywall, saw planks of wood and hammer nails.
     Teresa who was two years younger than Clayton learned bookkeeping. Later she became a chartered accountant. The Sorich family, which was Milan's surname, was a typical Canadian success story. They were middle class people who had escaped poverty and oppression to haul themselves into the middle class. There were many success stories just like the Sorich family in post World War Two Canada. To many of these people it was a golden age.