Goro Jorgic
Goro Jorgic | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1921 Pristina, Yugoslavia |
| Died | 1989 Adelaide, South Australia, Australia |
| NSA member | Australia 1963 - 1967 |
Dr. Goroljub Jorgic (1921 - 1989)[1][2] was a Yugoslavian-Australian Bahá'í who served on the National Spiritual Assembly of Australia in the 1960's.
Life[edit]
Goro was born in Pristina, Yugoslavia. While living in Yugoslavia he studied economics and completed his masters.
When the Nazi's occupied Yugoslavia in WWII Goro joined the Royal Resistance Movement, a resistance group independent of the Communist Yugoslav Partisans. He was captured by the Nazi's when he was 23 and sent to work in Graz Opera House in Austria where he met Slavojka 'Ingrid', a ballerina who had studied in Australia, and had been ordered to perform in the Opera Aida. They began meeting in secret, but their relationship was discovered and Ingrid was sent to a forced labour camp in Germany where she contracted pneumonia. She was sent to hospital for treatment, where she worked after recovering. Goro escaped Austria and fled to Italy, and the couple reunited and married in Germany in 1946.[3]
Goro decided to emigrate to Australia with Ingrid, rather than return to Yugoslavia which was now under a Communist regime, and they arrived in Fremantle, Western Australia on December 16, 1948.[4][5][6] After arriving in Australia Goro studied at Melbourne University in order to have his economics degree recognised in Australia, and eventually completed a Doctorate.[7] Ingrid worked as a machinist at a tailoring firm until 1950, when she was offered a position with the Australian National Ballet Company.[8]
By 1953 the Jorgic's had moved to Hobart, Tasmania, where Goro applied for Australian citizenship.[9] They became Bahá'ís while living in Tasmania, but moved to Adelaide in 1954.[10] In 1962 Goro accompanied Frank Khan on a teaching trip. They discussed the Faith at a Mosque in Adelaide, and Goro delivered talks on the Faith in Sydney, Wollongong, Blacktown and Newcastle during the trip.[11]
By 1963 Goro was a member of the Australian National Spiritual Assembly, and he travelled to Haifa that year for the establishment of the Universal House of Justice, casting a vote for the body.[12] In 1966 he went to East Timor to visit the Bahá'í community as a member of the Australian Assembly. He wrote the following of his visit.
"The secretary of the Indonesian consulate and his wife revealed to me the similarity of the principles of Bahá'u'lláh to Indonesian official five principles ... the Governor expressed the appreciation for English teaching services rendered by Mr and Mrs Fitzner...the wife of one of the directors of the public service upon study of English with the Fitzners eventually obtained a Cambridge certificate, enabling her to teach at Mozambique High School in Africa".[13]
In 1967 Goro and his wife returned to Austria to speak at the Twelfth Austrian Bahá'í Summer School.[14]
He passed away in Adelaide in 1989, and was buried in Centennial Park.[15]
References[edit]
- ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/151278938/goroljub-jorgic
- ↑ http://www.centennialpark.org/memorial-search/goroljub-jorgic-60638/
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83769163
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55849172
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/61094656
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83769163
- ↑ Baha'i News (1968). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 442, Pg(s) 12. View as PDF.
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/55849172
- ↑ https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/27172402
- ↑ https://bahai-library.com/hassall_tasmania_history
- ↑ https://bahai-library.com/hassall_fazel_mohammed_khan
- ↑ https://bahai-library.com/uhj_ministry_custodians&chapter=7
- ↑ https://bahai-library.com/hassall_fitzners_portuguese_timor
- ↑ Baha'i News (1968). National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States. No 442, Pg(s) 12. View as PDF.
- ↑ http://www.centennialpark.org/memorial-search/goroljub-jorgic-60638/
