A Portrait of Rose

Milan Svanderlik's mother, Rose, was born in 1908 in rural Croatia, then still part of the mighty Hapsburg Empire. This portrait of her depicts a rustic childhood and adolescence on the family farm, overseen by her talented and strong-minded mother, Christina, effectively the matriarch of the family, particularly after her husband returns from the Great War a broken man. But village life is not for Rose and she dreams of the more sophisticated life of towns and cities. Her passport to freedom is the striking Theo, an officer in the Royal Yugoslav Army. They marry and after some years on the military base of a country town, where they have two children, the family is posted to Zagreb, the cosmopolitan capital, where Rose enjoys the happiest years of her life. As World War II looms, Theo's unit is posted to Petrinja, an important garrison town, where Rose has to face her greatest challenges. As the Yugoslav Army disintegrates, Theo simply disappears, leaving Rose to fend for herself and their children, Vera and Mirko. With her husband suspected of joining Tito's Partisans, making him a traitor in the eyes of Croatia's new nationalist rulers, Rose and the children are threatened with the concentration camps. In the nick of time, two guardian angels appear and Rose and her family are safe from the threats of fascist militias. But what will happen when the war takes an unexpected turn? Will Rose come to be seen as a traitor herself? And what will her husband think if and when he ever returns?

This Portrait, the story of a long life lived through the 20th century's most turbulent times, is illustrated with 61 remarkable contemporary photographs, bringing to life the period from 1908 to 1946.