Among the images produced by the war in Yugoslavia, one of  the starkest is that of an old woman lying back in a wheelbarrow and pushed by male family members or friends toward the border of Albania . Though that woman is one among hundreds of thousands of refugees, she represents an entire people,  reduced to misery by the brutal forces that have swept over them.

For weeks I have felt haunted by the faces of Kosovar refugees as they  have fled their homes in fear for their very lives. Old people, in particular, stir in me pity for the plight that has overtaken them in late life. What a way to complete one’s years, pursued by others who hate you simply because of your ethnic identity!

Typically, the women wear shawls around their head, and black threadbare clothes prob-ably worn for weeks. Their faces and those of their men are lined with anxiety and the horror of what they have seen. Their mouths are set in a grim vise and their eyes are cast down in sorrow for what has befallen them.

They look much older than their years. Being uprooted from all that is dear to them acts like that rare disease, progeria,  which hastens the arrival of old age in young people.

Could they ever have expected such grief? The answer to this question may be “yes” because they must remember the turmoil of World War II as well as the years that followed. Not for the first time are they seeing their own lives thrown into turmoil,  family members killed, and fellow citizens subjected to horrible fates. Their small province has been easy to prey on and subject to outrages large and small.

History is written in their faces. The ravages inflicted by other European wars long before this one have left their tragic marks.

Though under Tito’s rule they enjoyed some security, it came at the price of freedom. And their mother country, Albania, stayed under Communist control while remaining the poorest nation in Europe.

“Life is too short,” Americans commonly say.  For many Kosovars, however, life has been altogether too long. They have lived to experience deprivation and humiliation terrible at any age but especially bitter in later years.

An old man, white hair mostly covered by a black beret, sits on the side of the road weeping copiously and wiping his nose with a handkerchief. The photo caption says that he’s weeping for joy because of being headed for a refugee camp.

But he has a multitude of reasons for tears – – among other factors, he probably has been exposed to days and nights of cold and rain, and may have tramped many miles in search of safety. Of course he may weep not just for himself, but for members of his extended family, for his fellow Kosovars, and for their world now lying in ruins.

How awful it must be to see one’s grandchildren condemned to a life like this! The joy that elders commonly take in seeing their children’s children grow in strength and beauty is, in this instance, replaced by biting anxiety for their very survival.

The experience of aging is clearly not the same for everybody. If you happen to be caught in the violent vortex of world history, like so many of these elders, your age is a time filled with horror. You recognize yourself to belong to a people vulnerable to attack when it suits the convenience of power-holders intent on domination.

You also pay the price of your nation’s history. Events that happened hundreds of years ago reverberate in your life with thunderous effect. You are held hostage to the sins of the past and made to pay for what others did or suffered.

Arrived in refugee camps, you hear assurances that you will be returned home before long. But can you believe that you will ever again see your native land? And, if you do, will not everything about it have changed? Cities and towns lie in ruins; the landscape at large has been laid to waste. Living back there will surely bring much more trial than consolation.

Human dignity, so violently outraged, will surely be difficult to retain or recover. You are reduced to grabbing for scraps of civilization – – documents,  photos, tools – – that can tell you that your life used to be better. Now you wait in line for everything and stand entirely dependent upon the largess of others for your survival.

This is the terrible nightmare of old persons coming true. While awake and in the full light of day, these elders see the specters of nighttime taking horrific shape in front of them. If anybody had told them that old age would bring such suffering, would they have chosen to live this long?

Richard Griffin