Tito's Wife Is Left To A Life Of Squalor

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 2-27-2006 | Kate Connolly

[blam]

Tito's widow is left to a life of squalor

By Kate Connolly in Belgrade
(Filed: 27/02/2006)

Choked in ivy, its balconies and pillars crumbling, the once imposing villa looks as if it were abandoned years ago. A curtain twitches. A dark-haired woman wearing sunglasses peers out before whipping it back.

She lives in just two rooms of the spacious property and one of those has a hole in the ceiling. The others are uninhabitable due to damp, mould and broken windows.

There has been no heating for 25 years. Water has to be heated on a stove.

Many elderly Belgrade residents in straitened circumstances share a similar fate. But this is the home of Mrs Josip Broz Tito, widow of the former Yugoslavia's communist dictator.

Jovanka Broz, 81, was discovered living in penury after her sister, Nada, wrote to newspapers to complain of the "disgraceful way" the former First Lady was "forced to live".

"Little better than a bag lady," was the headline in one newspaper, amazed to discover that she was still alive.

"This lady used to have such high standards and now everything around her is rotting, even her wallpaper," said Ljubica Bauk, who was Mrs Broz's personal maid for 20 years. She now lives in a cold one-room flat next to her former mistress's rusting entrance gate.

Tito's widow reportedly has three bodyguards supplied by the interior ministry, and a gardener. But they are nowhere to be seen. The garden is a mess of mud and weeds. The Serbian minister of minorities and human rights, Rasim Ljajic, has now taken up her case, forced to act after Macedonian businessmen appeared at her door offering to help.

Such charity from what are now foreigners would have been acutely embarrassing to the Serbian government.

"It's unbelievable," Mr Ljajic said. "She lives in a large house - the so-called "guest villa" - of which she uses only two rooms because the rest are uninhabitable.

"No one, let alone the widow of a former president should live like this. The least we could do is fix the hole in the living room ceiling."

The villa in the fashionable Dedinje district of Belgrade was last renovated in 1961 for Indian leader Indira Ghandi's use when she was invited to Belgrade by Tito.

Mrs Broz was placed under house arrest in the villa in 1977 after being dragged from the presidential home in her nightgown with a few possessions after Tito's aides suspected her of plotting a coup.

Her late husband's family are unrepentant about their lack of intervention in her plight, saying she has brought the suffering on herself and has refused all offers of help.

"I was there when my grandfather kicked her out," said Joska Broz, Tito's grandson from his first marriage to a Russian, Pelagiya Belousova. He runs a Belgrade restaurant and is the spitting image of the dictator.

"He was furious with her because she had meddled in politics, rather than remaining an obedient and loving wife," he said. "After that she cut off all contact with us and rejected all offers of help even though there was no row.

"Even if she was to blame for his rejection of her, there's no doubt she loved Tito immensely, and suffered a lot because of her connection with him."

[farmer18th]

I wonder why I'm not feeling a great deal of sympathy here. "First Lady" of a communist dictatorship? Say again?

[wireman]

Old commie tugging at your heartstrings story.

[JohnLongIsland]

is this the yugoslavian version of the bill and hillary story?

[dfwgator]

She's lucky she didn't meet the fate of Mrs. Ceausescu.

[Phil Connors]

No sympathy here.

Better now than in her afterlife tho.

[Mike Darancette]

Wow what a really inadequate retirement plan.

[BunnySlippers]

[Fintan]

 

The old boy, back in the day. Time just loooooves their Bolsheviks...

[Brilliant]

What goes round, comes round.

[eastcobb]

I thought this was going to be about Michael Jackson's ex-sister-in-law.

[BunnySlippers]

[Diddle E. Squat]

[wagglebee]

LMAO!

[G-dzilla]

First the story quoting the NY Times story about the "inhumane" conditions at the Afghan prision, now this. My my, the "Telly" has veered more than a tad to the left, hasn't it?

[wardaddy]

wealth made from the yoke of despotism is a fragile thing....she coulda gone the Elena Ceausescu route

[eeevil conservative]

LOL! I have to admit I am guilty of the same... must be us Georgians...from Cobb County...LOL!

[junta]

Yeah the wife of a Croat commie dictator must be real popular in Serbia, my heart bleeds.

[Fintan]

 

Just...DAMN!!!!

[unixfox]

Nada, wrote to newspapers to complain of the "disgraceful way" the former First Lady was "forced to live".

Nobody is "forced to live" like that. They do it on their own.

Maybe some government cheese with that wine?

[BunnySlippers]

Apparently Tito had lots and lots of women. She was 28 when she married him. He was 60.

[tioga]

Living off of welfare in the US is better than that.

[dfwgator]

"Tito, give me some tissue, Jermaine stop teasing...."

[Doctor Raoul]

TIME is Bolshevik!

[NCC-1701]

Something like that would leave a lasting mark. Ouch!

[beaver fever]

Actually Tito was half Croat and half Serbian. He was also the only post war Communist leader who could say no to Moscow and get away with it.

During WWII his partisans tied the Germans up in the Balkans and made next to impossible for them to take complete control of the region.

He was also in direct contact with British Intelligence which allowed the Brits to land equipment as well as Brit intelligence and commando personnel into Yugoslavia.

[junta]

I'm to understand to keep his empire together he dogged out the Serbs so the others thought they had a part in the scam, kind of like AA in this country.

[WKUHilltopper]

Life's a bitch. Then you die, eh? Comrade?

[opinionator]

McDonald's does a great job in hiring the elderly.

[beaver fever]

Not sure what you mean by dogged out the Serbs and what scam are you talking about?

[Lurker]

He also threw a friend of mines father into prison when he returned to Yugo for his fathers funeral.

His crime? Leaving Yugoslavia. They didn't let him out for 4 years. He died about a year after coming home. He never would talk about what they did to him, but he was a shell when he got back to America.

Screw the old bitty. I hope she rots.

L

[aShepard]

......She now lives in a cold one-room flat next to her former mistress's rusting entrance gate. ........

Um! Maybe she's still getting her jollies!

[SAMS]

For a minute I thought they DID mean that Tito!!

[lizma]

I was in Yugoslavia a few years after Tito died.

From what I saw she appears to have a middle class communist existence. (The upper class had three rooms and a bathroom. It was a hell hole.)

[ThreePuttinDude]

I've heard horror stories from Old Serbs, about the treatment
from Tito against fellow Serbs/Croats/Macedonians etc.

The stories were all the same, he was a monster to his own people.
Well, to him they weren't really his people by the way he treated them.

[Verginius Rufus]

Tito was Croat on his father's side and Slovene on his mother's side...his native village, Kumrovec, was near the Croatia/Slovenia border and his mother's village in Slovenia close enough to walk to, but the people there considered him a Croat, not one of themselves. At least that's what I read somewhere. Ironically he died in Slovenia (they must have had the best hospital).

His widow must be a Serb to have chosen to stay in Serbia

[Tall_Texan]

She's lucky she didn't meet the fate of Mrs. Ceausescu.

She might wish she had.

[Verginius Rufus]

What's the Soviet medal? It has the Cyrillic letters for USSR and for the Russian word meaning "victory."

Any idea of the date? From the caption I'd guess it's from after the war but before the break with Stalin. About 1946 Tito was giving the US a hard time (shot down one or two American planes). He was acting the fanatical Bolshevik until Stalin turned on him.

[beaver fever]

I'm not a fan of Tito or any of the Warsaw pact Soviet baggage carriers.

From what I understand after the Hungarian Revolution Tito was able to run Yugoslavia free of direct interference from Moscow.

As you say he probably cut a deal to suppress anti communist dissent as did the leaders of Poland.

I have read comments that Tito maintained relative independence with the veiled threat that a Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia would meet with well trained and effective guerrilla resistance.

As far as Mrs. Tito goes, she was brutally treated by her husband, probably on orders from Moscow.

The old bird is 87 years old and she was no Elena Ceausescu.

Give her a reasonably comfortable apartment and let bygones be bygones.

[wardaddy]

they had it coming though remarkably...they still have their defenders

[metalurgist]

I hope to read a story like this about Hillary! some day.

[Lurker]

You're right about the well trained resistance. IIRC the Nazis couldn't pacify Yugo with several divisions.

L

[RJL]

But this is the home of Mrs Josip Broz Tito, widow of the former Yugoslavia's communist dictator.

It seems rather fitting that she should enjoy the fruits of communism that she and her husband wanted for everyone else.

[Draco]

I have read comments that Tito maintained relative independence with the veiled threat that a Soviet invasion of Yugoslavia would meet with well trained and effective guerrilla resistance.

Stalin reported said "I can wiggle my pinky finger and make Tito dance," or words to that end. He meant that he thought he could manipulate Tito easily, but Yugoslavia's access to the Adriatic (and Western aide) meant Tito didn't have to do the wiggle dance. It wasn't just the threat of dogged resistance in the mountains, it was supply from the West. Or maybe Stalin's pinky didn't work.

[1rudeboy]

I'll wager the NYT picks up her case.

[publana]

I am embarrassed to say that I thought your Tito was whom the article referred. LOL

[beaver fever]

When Tito's picture turns up on the cover of Time magazine the message is pretty clear.

Unlike Hungary the west would have backed Tito if the Russians moved on Yugoslavia. At the time Tito still had many friends in British Intelligence.

The Poles would have followed quickly afterward.

[sphinx]

Nobody is "forced to live" like that. They do it on their own.

She's 81. What speaks volumes is that her sister, who apparently wrote to the newspapers, won't otherwise lift a finger to help. No other family in sight. So make that 81 and alone. A sad ending, but not at all unusual.

The only thing missing from the standard version of the story is 137 cats.

[Fintan]

I can only guess late 1940's-early 1950's.

 

[Cheburashka]

Tito never signed the Warsaw Pact. He had his falling out with Stalin in 1948, and the Warsaw Pact was formed in 1955.
He was a Communist dictator, and the U.S. and the West had clashes with him 1945-48, but when he broke with Stalin the West supported him, so the Soviets couldn't use force to bring Yugoslavia back into line, like they did with Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.
One of my teachers when I was in college talked about going to military maneuvers by the Yugoslav Army in the 50's or 60's and seeing American-made Patton tanks with large red stars on them.
I can imagine what General Patton would have had to say about that.