The association between depression and traumatic experiences, stress, loss, and bereavement is well known. It was expected that Bosnian refugee adolescents who had fled from war zones to Slovenia would develop higher levels of depression than their Slovenian peers without war traumatic experiences. Two years after the beginning of the war in Bosnia, 265 8th-grade refugee students aged 14 to 15 years were assessed with the Children's Depression Inventory (CDI) and compared with a sample of 195 Slovenian students of the same age. The Bosnian refugees showed significantly lower rates of depressive symptomatology despite very high rates of posttraumatic stress symptoms. Slovenian adolescents showed significantly lower self-esteem and greater feelings of inadequacy in the academic field; they were more likely to have feelings of not being loved and more often expressed the wish to kill themselves. Refugees described more sadness, worried about the future and about physical pains, but they do not show lower school achievement or more behavioral problems. The results indicate that the association between traumatic experiences and depressive symptoms is not inevitable, and that other factors including culture and context influences must be taken into account.

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tional attention, because overall Yugoslavia had a much lower suicide rate of approximately 16/100,000 persons/year. This was described as the "Yugoslav suicide paradox" [Milcinski & Mrevlje, 1990] because the Northern areas showed suicide rates ten times higher than the areas in the South. Most recently, the Slovenes won their independence after the short war and occupation by the Yugoslav army in 1991.The average suicide rate between 1985 and 1999 has been around 30/100,000 persons/year; the trend is stable with insignificant fluctuations despite significant political and socio-economical changes in these years. In addition, Slovene suicidal behavior differs from that found elsewhere in three ways. First, the most common method of suicide in Slovenia is hanging (about twothirds of all suicide victims). Second, the Slovenes are at a higher risk of committing suicide than any other nationality group in Slovenia, including the Hungarian minority. This might come as a surprise since Hungary overall has a higher suicide rate than Slovenia. Finally and very important for further research, the range between the highest and the lowest regional suicide rate in Slovenia is almost as high (around 40) as the one between the highest and lowest rate countries (Lithuania and Albania) in Europe.