For 64 years, the Raljic family failed to solve the mystery – where did Bogoljub Raljic disappear? His cousin Dusan Raljic (58) launched a search for the family to finally find peace.
“Born in 1937 in what was then Skender Vakuf – Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), and after completing his military service, in 1959 he came to Pancevo to his uncle, where he learned the shoemaking trade. Allegedly, at that time he had a girlfriend who was pregnant. After years of living and working in that city, one evening he did not return to his apartment, and he was not found there either the next day or the day after that. All traces of Bogoljub Raljic are lost”.
After so many years of digging through the past to find out anything that could lead to an answer, Dusan says that unfortunately the progress is very small, but every piece of information he hears gives him new hope and motivation to continue the search, which has been increasingly intense for the last three years.
Bogoljub was born in Skender Vakuf/Knezevo in 1937
Bogoljub Raljic was born in what is now Knezevo on May 2nd, 1937, as the second of seven children of father Nikola and mother Persa. Sometime in 1957, he went to serve his military service in Varazdin. He had an uncle Dusan in Pancevo with whom he was in contact and regularly exchanged letters. The uncle who at that time, according to Bogoljub’s cousin Dusan, was the owner of a shoe shop in Pancevo, invited his cousin Bogoljub to come to him in Pancevo after his military service, which he did.
”Everything was agreed in letters, and his father Nikola was one of the rare literate people of that time, a great host, highly respected in his region and beyond. He realized that there was no life for young people on wasteland and livestock farming, and in an area where winters lasted for 6 months. So he decided to send my uncle Bogoljub to Pancevo to live with his brother in order to finish his shoemaking trade and stay there,” says Dusan.
So Bogoljub came to live with his uncle in Pancevo and lived in Brace Jovanovic Street, and according to those who knew him, Dusan says that, as time went on, Bogoljub quickly learned his trade and was hardworking. Everything went exactly as it should, at that time young Bogoljub was only twenty-two or three years old.
He didn’t show up
However, their life suddenly takes a different course, it becomes a mystery that has not been solved to this day. Bogoljub disappeared without any trace sixty-four years ago.
”Bogoljub does not come to the apartment that day after the walk. The night passed, but even in the morning the room was empty. They thought “okay, maybe he spent the night at a colleague’s place”. However, on the second, third, fifth day – nobody saw or heard anything about Bogoljub. All the time they hoped that he would appear, because until then nothing like that had happened, since he didn’t go out so often. They did not go to the police immediately because they were afraid that he had not been recruited by emigration, which was very active in those years, and they were afraid for themselves, for the controls of The Department for People’s Protection (OZNA) and State Security Administration (UDBA), and also because of relatives who worked for the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA), mentioned Dusan.
They sent letters wherever they went. His parents called from Bosnia that he did not come to their house, nor did he write to them.
A mysterious girl appears at the door
However, one morning everyone was taken aback when a girl appeared at the door of their apartment – “Does Bogoljub Raljic live here”, she asked. “I’m his girlfriend and I’m pregnant, and he doesn’t know about it, and since I can’t reach out to him, I came to look for him.”
Dusan thinks that the boy Bogoljub’s girlfriend gave birth to could have been born in 1960 or 1961, and he started all this in the hope that he would be able to get in touch with him.
We hope to find out much more. If not about Bogoljub, at least about Mrs. Milena, whom I sincerely hope is alive, and about her son, who is of our blood and whom I want to meet,” these are the words of Dusan, who hopes that this already sad story will have at least somewhat happy end, N1 writes.
E.Dz.
