Slovene

So this is very exciting.

It's the work of Dr. Ivan Sprajic, a Slovenian from a Slovenian research center.

And he has cobbled together the money to do this.

from various sources, some Slovenian sources, and even from the Wisconsin Audubon Society.

Why Wisconsin Audubon Society? Because birds from Wisconsin actually go down and winter in this area.

So they feel, they seem to feel a sense of responsibility for the history of the area and, you know, why things collapse, you know, all kinds of stuff like that.

four.

Is it English, Slovenian, Spanish, Italian? Yeah,

he played in Italy.

That might be.

Spain.

Spain, for sure.

He speaks Spanish, Slovenian, or

whatever,

And finally, you know, I spent lots of time in America also as a doctoral student and later also as a visiting scholar, visiting professor at several universities.

So I feel there is some connection also that was anticipated with this little example from this fieldwork that was done on the Croatian-Slovenian border, where I met an 82-year-old violinist and then, as I said, he opened new horizons for me.

So here is the song about America.

Šta će nama ognjište naših pradjedova? Kad je širok ovaj svijet, pun je slatkih snova, Ja založim kuću grunt i napravim duga, I odidem v Ameriko kao kakav sluga.

So can you tell us a little bit about where you were born and how you learned the languages and the songs that you're sharing with us today?

It's actually a very funny situation that existed in my family.

Now, when I found the correspondence between my grandma and the grandfather, he was Slovenian and she was Croatian.

And all this correspondence is in German.

Okay, so we start with him.

Zampoli has long claimed credit for hiring a young Slovenian model named Melania Naus and sponsoring her immigration to the United States, arranging for her to receive an H-1B visa and setting her up in a New York apartment in 1996.

Okay.

Lucky that was 1996.

So reach people who I know will listen to Jewish voices more, but also, not kind of contribute to the idea that Palestinian voices are not to be trusted?

Well, I have to tell you, I was in Croatia recently for some speaking events, and there's a Jewish woman from Slovenia there, quite active in the Slovenian Jewish community, and she told me that in Slovenia, I'm regarded as bad as Francesca is.

And I thought, what a great compliment, you

know? I know.

And they denied speaking German.

They said they are speaking Slovenian because they knew that if they were recognized as German Jews, the Americans would not let them in.

Or they were at least afraid of that because they knew there are many people fleeing.

So they came in as Slovenians and then, of course, they did something that is a big topic even now.

They overstayed their visa and eventually went to Canada and then at the end came back to America.

And Trude actually lived up to the age of 90 years, had children and grandchildren and eventually died in Florida, as many retired Americans do.