“It was very risky because if I had to walk for maybe twenty minutes from the place where I lived in my house to the Art Academy. But I was lucky because I didn't have to cross the bridge. So I was not on the side by snipers. They couldn't see me because I walked between houses…. So the lecture started in the morning, then we had drawing. And then we had art history after 12 o'clock, and philosophy aesthetics, and from five to seven, we had subjects drawing the nude figure. So the whole day I was at the Academy.
It was unbelievable, unreal to study during the siege, but we did. It was some kind of our world separated from war.
H’s War Artifact
“J” Described Walking To School During The Siege:
Seeing The Village Was Such A Big Disappointment.
Before we came back, I visited the village with my father. I was the only child who actually visited the village before we returned definitely. And, you know, I was listening as a child about this village about Sućeska, and I have this vision of this ideal place. And then we came and it was summer, and everything was overgrown, and in ruins. And there was not one house standing. And I thought this is definitely not how I imagined it. And this is not where I want to return.
Seeing the village was such a big disappointment. I came back and I told my brothers and my sister that I'm not going back back there. You know, it's it was not. It was not even remotely close to what I was imagining it would look like based on all the stories that I was listening to as a child.
- H
We Were Using Candle Lights When It Was Dark.
In Sarajevo during the war, we didn't have electricity. Maybe one day during two weeks. So we were like in a theater place. We were using candle lights when it was dark. And we use the natural light during the day for going and listening to lectures. Rarely we had electricity. We had to go from to place when they gave us the food and water. Food was very limited. And very expensive if you want to buy something to eat. I remember the first chocolate I got in 1995. Yeah. It was amazing. Because I love chocolate. I paid for it. It was like five Deutsche mark. Like, two and a half dollars for a little piece.
- J
O’s War Artifact
As you can see it’s a very old picture. It's a picture of my dad, when he was in the army. So he was 21. He was very, very young here, obviously. So it was before the war in1990s.
He died in the war. That's the reason why this artifact, in a way, it's a constant. My dad's is that one thing that constantly reminds you of the war. So that's, you know, that's it's always there. So it's just this hole and whenever you talk about the war or anything related to the war, he's always there. So we lost him in the war, so he's that one thing that kinda- always reminds you of what happened to all of us.
We lost many family members actually, a lot of our we lost approximately 50% - 60% of our male relatives in the war. So there were many widows. Anybody will tell you, you know, that they lost many family members, and that they still had some family members left. But you know, it's just, I think in a country after a conflict that was the one thing that we all - it's weird to say maybe it's confusing as well- but it was the sense of belonging, you know what I mean? Just the sense of, we all felt quite similar at that time, and there was this connection and this link to each other through the pain and the loss and the will to also move forward but also not to forget your beloveds, right? What happened to them.
- O
In 1995 when the Dayton Agreement was signed, we were all happy that war stopped. We all felt euphoria. Happy. So the new period started for us without shellings and fear and fighting for staying alive.
The die symbolizes our life in Sarajevo and represents the end of the war because gambling games were over. This stone is part of the street from the old part of Sarajevo from the Ottoman period.
In 1995 When The Dayton Agreement Was Signed,
J’s War Artifact
So it was for maybe the first two years happiness…But no, I think that war never stopped. We are in some kind of constant conflict situation. So from this perspective, I think maybe we shouldn't have been so happy at that moment.
- J
1941-1945 World War II
There was a very strong anti-fascism movement in Sarajevo at the time. And our house ended up being one of the cells of the Partisan Movement. People who were sought off after by the Germans would be hiding in our house and my father would have connections to transfer them into the forests to join the partisans. And that's what I remember from my childhood. The whole neighborhood knew that this is what my family was doing.
But nobody ever tipped off anyone and once a Orthodox Serb priest was in the house.I was playing under the table. And he was sitting at the table dressed as a woman but as a Muslim woman with a covered head face. But I was under the table and I saw all the hair on his on his legs.And he was pretending to be a woman you know, and was pretending to be very quiet. But I was pulling under the table. I was pulling him by the hair on his legs. I was seven. And I came from under the table and I whispered to my mom, "Mom, this is a man this is not a woman. Look how hairy his legs are." My mother said, "Okay, if a small child figured this out then our mask is not working and we should work on camouflaging him a bit more."
- M
That One Thing That Constantly Reminds Me Of The War.
1995 - It Started In Primary School
I was born two months after the genocide. So my mother was carrying me in her stomach during her most traumatic days of her life. And I grew up in this trauma until I was 10, I didn't really notice it, it was kind of normal. I started only later in my teenage years understanding how wrong the environment was in which I grew up. How this was not a normal environment. And this was not a normal situation. And I became aware of it only later in life when I was a little bit more conscious about what happened.
It started in primary school. In my family this subject (genocide) was taboo. Nobody talked about this. So when I was going to primary school I was interested in soccer and games. And you know, I didn't really know anything about the past. But then it started when I was in the classroom, I have these Serb colleagues, you know, in the classroom, and they started first talking about how there was no genocide in Srebrenica. And at the time, I didn't even know what genocide was. But I did notice that they were trying to make me repeat this and affirm this, that there was no genocide, although I didn't know what that was. And I saw that when this subject would come up, there was some real rivalry between the Bosniak children and the Serb children. And that was my first encounter with this subject. I actually learned about what happened in school, not at home.
- H
I was four when it all started. So my mom first wanted to stay and and my dad joined the force. But we had to leave when it was quite quite clear. So we went to Croatia first. I mean, not “went”, it wasn't like a tourist visit. But we had to go through several checkpoints. So it took obviously days to get there through the woods, and then we had to stay in some of the forest as well for some time. So through some older roads, unfamiliar roads, etc, in order to get obviously to a place where we could take shelter, because we had to leave in that direction because Sarajevo was already under siege. So that's where we stayed first. We had to move for approximately five times during that time. So we would live first in a gym, with other families, with a lot of families. Then we stayed in an apartment building. Then we had to move (because Bosnia) went to war with Croatia. So we had to move from there to a smaller community as well, somewhere where there were other refugees too. (We lived in) a hut on water, then like a wooden shack, so to say, in, in the mountains, somewhere in the cliffs region. And then from there, we were relocated to Germany. So, it was really chaotic.