“A Conversation with the Visionaries Mirjana”, Medjugorje 2011

When the apparitions began in Medjugorje, 16 years old visionary Mirjana Dragicevic attended Sarajevo’s best secondary school, and was happy with her family. Overnight her pleasant life was replaced by threats and interrogations. ”I always wanted to ask those who considered me a liar: Why should I lie? What would I gain by lying?” the seer asks in a new book.

Mirjana Dragicevic-Soldo with her husband Marko during an apparition
Expelled from secondary school. Persecutions, threats and daily interrogations. For 16 years old Mirjana Dragicevic, these were the external rewards of becoming a visionary of the Virgin Mary.
30 years later Mirjana recounts the persecutions against her in local author Kresimir Sego’s new book, “A Conversation with the Visionaries”. Revealing in detail how the life she knew disappeared, Mirjana also addresses those who consider her a liar:
“In the beginning it was difficult for me that people did not believe us and that they were saying that we were making it all up. Gradually, this has stopped, but I feel sorry for those who continue to think and feel this way, who continuously wonder whether or not this all is true, while Our Lady is stretching out her hand to lead us to salvation. Why do you waste time?” Mirjana says.

Communist architecture fronting the hills of Sarajevo. Mirjana grew up in the Bosnian capital
“I also often asked myself: Why should I invent such a lie? If I were lying, this would make me an abnormal person. Even during communism, the doctors stated that we were normal. I had a nice life, I lived with my parents as the only child for nine years; they cherished me. Why would I want to turn my life upside down, why bring turmoil, anxiety, agony and pain into my life – why? In my opinion, only an unstable person can do such a thing.”
“It is different now; communism no longer reigns here and neither does the former country exist. Now it is nice to be a visionary, but back then….Why would someone want to do that? I always wanted to ask those who considered me a liar: “Why should I lie? What would I gain by lying?”
What Mirjana actually gained, she also details to Kresimir Sego.
Expelled from secondary school

Vicka, Mirjana and Ivanka during an apparition in 1982
While the other visionaries lived in Medjugorje, in 1981 Mirjana lived with her parents and brother in Sarajevo, today the capital of Bosnia and Hercegovina, back then a stronghold of Yugoslavia’s ruling communists:
“It was easier here in Medjugorje, as it was one nation and everyone was Catholic. It was different for me because I was alone. Before the apparitions took place, I attended a classical secondary school. It was considered the best of its kind in Sarajevo. As soon as I came back to school, I was expelled and the whole ordeal was accompanied by ugly words”, Mirjana tells Kresimir Sego.
“My father managed to transfer me to another school, but this class was attended by all the other students who had been expelled from the other five secondary schools in Sarajevo. You can imagine how I felt; the newspapers were full of terrible articles about me. I read that I was the granddaughter of a war criminal and that Our Lady was a fabrication made up by nationalists”.
Threatened and interrogated

Mirjana (third from right) with the other visionaries in 1982 when Mirjana, with some luck, tried to spend more time in Medjugorje while persecutions against her were at a height in Sarajevo
The Communist authorities left Mirjana little peace in attempting to have her break down:
“Every day I was taken away by officers of the Republic Secretariat of Internal Affairs. They interrogated and questioned me. They demanded that I write and sign a statement that Fr. Jozo Zovko (parish priest in Medjugorje by the time of the first apparition, ed.) fabricated the whole event which took place in Medjugorje”, Mirjana tells in Kresimir Sego’s new book.
“I was convinced that I needed to speak the truth and I told them that I had never even met Fr. Jozo before. He had become the parish priest at the end of 1980 and I came to Medjugorje for the summer holidays in June of 1981 while Fr. Jozo was in Zagreb”

Mirjana during her apparition on March 18th 2009
“I was persistent in trying to convince them that I did not know Fr. Jozo, but they kept on with their threats and they would repeatedly bring me in for interrogation. It was embarrasing for me to bring an excuse note from the Secretariat to school, as if I was a notorious criminal”, Mirjana says.
In the early days of the apparitions Mirjana tried to spend more time in Medjugorje where she had been on holidays when the apparitions began. But she was repeatedly sent back to Sarajevo:
“I came, but the police kept taking me back to Sarajevo. I remember a very nasty accident. They cursed, they threatened me, they yelled at me, and when they brought me back to my apartment, I said to my mother: “Mom, if you only knew what they put me through”. My mother hinted to me with her eyes to keep quiet and not to talk, because it could have been even worse”, Mirjana says.
Help from parents and unexpected sides
In the midst of the interrogations Mirjana was greatly helped by her parents. She also experienced how help was always near:
“I felt sorry for those who interrogated and threatened me. But, through this ordeal, my parents were extremely helpful. They told me to be persistent in telling the truth, that they would stand by me and that God would help us. Truly, so it was”, Mirjana tells.
“However, I was not the only one who had problems. Actually, my own problems did not matter to me so much, I kept thinking: I am seeing Our Lady and this is how it is supposed to be. This comforted me but it was difficult for me to watch my parents and my little brother suffer and cry”.
“My parents suffered persecution and threats that they would get fired, but God helped us through all this. I truly saw God’s work in everything. Doors that I thought would never be opened suddenly opened. When I thought I was all alone there was always someone there to help me. In this, I saw how the Mother of God acts through different people”.
Source:
Kresimir Sego: “A Conversation with the Visionaries”, Medjugorje 2011