Andrew's home town in Croatia: Kurjak in Lika Province

Here is the image of Andrew's WWI registration card.

Andrew wrote that he was from the town of "Udbina" in "Lika Province" in the "Autro-Croatia" nation.  And below that, that he was a citizen of "Autria-Hungary."

Udbina is a small town located in Croatia that is composed of a series of smaller settlements (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Udbina).   One of those smaller settlements is Kurjak (pronounced "Kur-yak").

Picture of Kurjak taken by Deborah Butler on 27 October 2014.

Andrew's family's property, where Andrew grew up, is located in Kurjak.  The property is still in the family to this day.  Here's the mailbox on the family property (with the family name!):

And here's a picture of the house itself.  The home which Andrew lived in was actually destroyed in World War II.  This home replaced the one destroyed.  It is actually one of the few homes still standing in Kurjak that was not destroyed in the 1990s conflict.  In that conflict, Kurjak villagers fled their homes one night.  Desa Kljaić, a cousin of Grandma Alexandra Butler, and Desa's son Boro had been living in the home.  When they fled they had to quickly leave the house and everything in it.  Like the others, Desa did not think to untie their animals or let them out of the basement.  (Some villagers had barns, but many were not as lucky and kept their animals in the basement.)  These animals died.  When the Croatian army came through and cleaned up, they just burned down the homes and barns with dead animals in them.  Boro Kljaić, Desa's brother and also Grandma Alexandra Butler's cousin, heard about this and drove several hours to Kurjak to remove the dead cow from their barn and bury it before the army could burn their home (Phone Interview with Mira Kljaić Pike (Reno, Nevada) by Deborah Butler, 6 October 2014.  More notes notes on the conversation are available.  If interested, contact me at deborah.butler@gmail.com). 

 

Kljaić residence, looking in through the front gate.  The barn is on the left, the home on the right.  The trees in the yard, to the right of the home, are plum trees.  (Photo taken by Deborah Butler, 27 October 2014).

In an 1866 "place dictionary" of Dalmatia, Croatia, and Slovenia, the town of Kurjak has 51 houses (see the images taken below).  As of today, Wikipedia lists the population as only 28 people. 

Title page for book from which Deborah Butler took the picture below. Photo taken on 30 October 2014. Book found in the Croatian State Archives in Zagreb or online

Taken by Deborah Butler on 30 October 2014.  This photo is of page 214.

Because Kurjak is so small, Boro Kljaić and family take time each year to cut away the weeds on the road to the Kljaić home.  Mira Pike (cousin of Alexandra Butler and sister to Boro Kljaić) said the road was once well maintained and several families (five or six?) had homes along the road.  But now only the Kljaić home and another at the end of the road still exist.  Here's a picture of the road leading up to the Kljaić home.