Andrija often stayed with his sister Ilona, whom he sometimes included in small illegal jobs. Ilonka, née Saver, took her brother’s three children in after Andrija and Olga were arrested in early May 1948 to prevent them from ending in a home. She fought for the children like a lioness and raised them for ten years. She left her job in order to be able to care for the children. They lived on the wages of her husband Josip aka Pepi alone. When Pepi was banished to the Goli otok island in 1949 (he came back in 1952) she was left without male help, any source of income, or health insurance for herself and the children. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment in the Zagreb section of Kustosija, 36 Prespanska St, surviving on the help of good people, the skill of aunt Ilonka’s hands, and sometimes receiving state assistance, allocated to the children of "traitors".