It's Their Miracle!
Every Bosnian child knows
the story of a poor woman who caught a golden fish, released it and in return
gained wealth and happiness. Its a Balkan fairy tale, but it turned into
reality for one poor family. "What happened here is beyond good luck,
it really is a fable," said Admir Malkoc, reflecting on how his fleeing
relatives freed two goldfish and were repaid hundredfold. The 150 Muslim
families in Jezero, a northwestern village surrounding a lake, lived a quiet
life before the Bosnian war, except for holidays, when the men returned from
jobs in western Europe loaded with presents. In 1990, Smajo Malkoc came back
from Austria with a gift for his teenage sons, an aquarium with two goldfish.
Two years passed, and war arrived. As Serb forces advanced on Jezero, women
and children fled while the men resisted. Malkoc was killed. When his wife,
Fehima, sneaked back to the village to bury her husband and take their remaining
belongings, she saw the fish in the aquarium. She let them out into the lake. "This
way they might be more fortunate than us" she thought. Fast forward
to 1995. Mrs. Malkoc returned to Jezero to find ruins, nothing left except
memories. Sadly, she turned toward the lake and glimpsed something strange. "The
whole lake was shining from the myriad golden fish in it," she said. "I
thought of my husband, he left me something that I never hoped for." During
the years of war around the lake, life underwater had flourished. Soon Mrs.
Malkoc and her sons started feeding and selling the fish.
Now, homes and coffee shops
in the region are filled with aquariums containing fish from Jezero. The
two boys are grown and Mrs. Malkoc is a proud grandmother. The Malkoc house,
rebuilt from the ruins, is one of the biggest in the village. Two new cars
are parked in front, and the family has enough money not to worry about the
future. "It was a special gift from our father."
In winter, when the ice
is thick enough to skate on the lake, the fish survive, although "before
it was impossible to keep them even in a home aquarium without a heater",
Malkoc said. Some are as big as 4.5 pounds, some have two tails, which the
villagers say is something magical. Others are welcome to catch and sell
the fish. But most defer to the Malkocs. "They threw the fish into the
lake," said a villager, "Its their miracle."
The Islamic Bulletin
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