PIG HEADS (May 6, 2008)
When little things that make a big difference come up in conversation, Jozo Brandić likes to tell a story about a Croatian friend of his who ended up in a Serbian concentration camp during the recent war in Bosnia. Next to the camp there was a slaughterhouse. Specializing in pigs, it fed the Serbian military units in the area, but some of the meat went to the prisoners, as well. Actually, they got only pig heads. Although a head could feed a few people, they could not get a sufficient number of heads to feed everyone well. As was often the case in this war, some of the prisoners knew their jailers. And well. By and by, they managed to get those working in the slaughterhouse to cut the heads off so as to include more of the necks. “There’s so much more meat in the neck than in the head,” Jozo likes to end the story with a laugh, “but those working in the slaughterhouse couldn’t care less one way or another.” Apparently, there were many pigs around during the war.