Wartime: Memories of Yugoslavia

It was a fanatical conviction that brought me [in 1942], exhausted and ailing, to Montenegro. I gave careful thought to my duties in a complicated new situation. I was frequently beset by a feeling of alienation from the region, the people, and their speech. It was a world which was no longer mine, and never could be again. In this alienated world, death was nothing unusual, whereas life had lost all meaning apart from survival. Yet life must have some meaning. That meaning had to be found in...