The level of destruction

Pictures speek for themselves.

This is a "Loris" building near the Zeljo soccer stadium, that was on the first line of defense. That was the first line that my friend and I were considering crossing while we were trapped on Grbavica trying to return into the city. The building was hit so many times, that the entire staircase on the corner has collapsed. It was made from the iron reinforced concrete.














All of these buildings, although some looked like they have been eaten up by termites, are patched up and still standing.









These two images are from the neighbourhood closest to the airport that we had to go through when embarking on the adventure to go through the tunnel under the runway.

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Am I ready...?

Am I ready to die this very minute?

Have you ever asked yourself that question? Ever? And were you able to answer with a 'yes'?

There were only two moments in my entire life when I felt ready to die at that very instance. One of them happened during the war.

Living in constant danger of being shot certainly increased our chances of dying any minute. But most of the time I was just trying my best to avoid death. Rarely would I think about 'what if'. And when I did, I would always conclude that I still wanted to fight to survive. It seemed that other people had the same force driving them to live, because interestingly, in spite of lack of nutrition, we were all rather healthy.

But this one time, I was particularly aware of how close the end of my life could be, and there was nothing I could do about it. It might have been late 1995 and I was riding on a bus. The bus was following the street parallel to the river, the street that was going along side the hill Trebevic, from where most of the missiles came. Standing next to a window, I was observing those houses and woods up the hill. There were few buildings that were protecting us from the view, but for most of the route the hill was very visible from the bus, and vice-versa. I was thinking about how there have been before, and maybe there were at that very moment, snipers looking and targeting at vehicles on the streets bellow. And that there may be one that is targeting at me right there.

At one point, in the minuscule reality of that scene in the bus, the realization came: "I am ready to die right now". And I felt at peace with that. I was not afraid, anxious, nor angry. I don't believe I was giving up, but I wasn't resisting either. My mind was not grasping for control in protecting my body. I didn't have any regrets. I thought I lived my life the best way I could, and for that brief moment, I felt like my soul was clean and ready to leave the pettiness of this world and meet its Creator. And for me that meant continuing onto something better for which I was ready.

I was ready to die.

I thought about this in the years since then and how liberating it felt to be ready. Like I said earlier, only one other time was I physically, mentally, and spiritually ready to go in that particular moment. Usually my answer would be: "could I go tomorrow?", because I had, or at least I thought I had, things to take care of. I have tried to remind myself every now and then that I never know when I'll be called home and try to be prepared mentally that it is inevitable. Even thinking about it on occasion has helped me live in a way where I could at least be a little bit more ready tomorrow.

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Neighbourhood grave sites

Death and burials, often by dozens, were a daily reality.

Our two main cemeteries were on the opposite sides of the city, but both outside of the siege area. So, since people were unable to transport the remains of their loved ones anywhere else, the neighbourhood parks had wooden grave markers poking up between the vegetable gardens and trenches. The burials had to be done at night.

We had half a dozen in front of our windows, different markers for different nationalities. My best friend's grandfather was buried there. It took several years after the war until people were ready and able to give them a proper funeral in a real cemetery. The last grave mark in front of our building was removed some three years after the war ended.

May they rest in peace.

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No whistling, please

You never get used to hearing grenades. The sound they make I still carry with me.

The launching of a grenade makes a popping sound, like a champagne bottle cap popping, only a thousand times stronger. Then there is a brief moment of silence, as if to tease your brain into thinking the pop came from some other source.

Then the whistle sound starts creeping in, very faint at first and then increasingly louder and louder. You can assume the direction the missile is going by this sound. Like with thunder, you can guess how close it's going to hit.

By this time, all your senses are focused on this high pitch noise and anticipating its inevitable ending in the explosion. You know it's coming. You can't help but pause all your thoughts for a brief moment until you know the ending.

And then the BOOM happens.

You actually feel a sense of relief that the anxious wait is over. The roaring sound still lingers, the building may be shaking, and the sirens are usually blaring. But your mind is released from the temporary freeze.

The two seconds are over and you can go about your day.

Most people who lived through a war may never get used to the whistling sound a grenade makes. For years after the war the kids in Sarajevo would do pranks in the public transportation and make the low-to-high whistle sound somewhere from the back. You could see an instant tension on peoples' faces; their minds locked for a moment to process the sensation and link it to reality. Some would duck, some look out the window, and others just freeze. Those kids would usually be thrown off of the vehicle at the next stop.

I am still easily startled by similar sounds, and flinch when people or objects suddenly appear from the behind.

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So strong, the shrapnels just bounce off!

I rarely mention this story, simply because some might wrongly interpret it as maybe bragging. So, so many people were badly wounded, crippled, and sadly, many have died from wounds inflicted by shrapnels from grenades, that my scar on the arm seems as a minor scratch and only as a reminder of other kids who suffered in that same incident.

The grenades are a nasty thing. They are so much worse than snipers, whose bullets are smooth and go straight though the tissue. The grenades are filled with metal, which, when grenade explodes, shreds into small sharp and rugged pieces. These shrapnels, combined with pieces of concrete or other material the grenade hits, create thousands of very destructive particles. Even the small pieces tear the tissue in different directions and leave large scars. The wounds get easily infected because of all the debris carried in and the cleaning is very painful. A good friend of mine got a pass-through wound on her shoulder, which had to be cleaned daily by pulling yards and yards of gaze through it, without any anesthetics....an absolute horrible thing!

Our neighborhood, Dobrinja, was positioned between the Bosnian and Serb army on the either end, and the airport and a hill on the other two sides. The two sides would send grenades over the buildings. Our building was along an avenue that ran the entire length of the neighborhood, which was about 1 mile. The armies often used these custom missiles that combined three grenades mounted onto a small motor. These were supposed to better control the distance. Those contraptions made a distinctive noise and were moving slower than regular grenades, so with that sound, we could almost follow them as they travelled from one side to the other.

In the summer of 1995, the frequent shooting was forcing us to stay inside most of the time. I spent many days studying on the balcony that faced the avenue. Even though grenades were traveling on the skies above, the faint fact that missiles were not falling between the buildings allowed me to sit outside, but constantly aware of their frequent sound.

On one particular day I was taking a break from the book to do some laundry hand-washing in a baby-tub on the balcony. As I was leaned over, a grenade landed on the sidewalk on the corner of the building across from ours. Now, someone who has been through the war from the day one might have instinctively jump to the ground to the sound of a grenade, but my instinct was to raise my head to see what just happened. As I did that, I distinctly remember seeing three shrapnels traveling my way and one hit me in the right arm. Actually, after hitting my flesh, burring the skin and making an imprint, it bounced off. The other two pieces missed me. I believe that if I was still bent over the tub, or attempted to squat down, the shrapnels would have hit me in the head.

I was bleeding for a little bit, and my arm swelled, but I was fine. My mom was so upset and she threw the three metal pieces off of the balcony, which I hoped she didn't do so I could have saved the metal with the same shape as my scar. :) We put some covering over my wound, but the real frenzy became to figure out where my brother was. He was supposed to be with a friend in the building in front of which the grenade fell, and they usually hang out right at the entrance. (many kids usually played in this area) His mother told us my brother was not there. Mom tried to run out to the site, because there were many wounded and killed at the scene, but the police stopped the people from approaching. Sadly, often times it happened that after a grenade kills many people at one spot, few minutes later, after others have gathered to check on them and carry them away, another grenade would be sent to the same spot or to the closest hospital that would be accepting those victims, so as to kill as many more people as possible. The police tried to stop that. The ambulance cars were loading the wounded, limp and bloody bodies, and my mom was panicking that my brother could be one of them. Mom was screaming here lungs out maybe an hour or two, until my brother came back, totally clueless of the magnitude of stress his absence has caused us. He was with a friend in the nearby neighborhood, some half an hour away, and he only heard people on the streets talking about the massacre in Dobrinja. After he was accounted for, and the sirens outside have died down, I went to the hospital, twenty minutes walk away.

They were still working on the kids with more serious wounds. One boy, around 13, had a shrapnel on his behind. He was laying on his stomach, his mom comforting him, as the doctors tried to stitch him up. Another little girl, maybe 5 years old, got hit in the heal as she was running up the stairs away from the explosion. I felt embarrassed to be there for my little wound. They cleaned it up, made sure there were no pieces in there, put some gaze and bandages on it, and told me to come every day for two weeks for cleaning. I wasn't happy with that thought, knowing what that usually means. They were actually taking the scab that formed every day off, to make the wound open and clean of infections. This has caused the bumpy scar to remain instead of skin being smooth.

The nurses made a list of everyone injured and killed and gave it to the news station, as they usually did. They reported it on the radio and TV, so that relatives would find out as most phone lines were not working. The next day my family from another part of Bosnia were calling after they heard my name, and not knowing how bad I was hurt. Again, it was a somewhat embarrassing position to be in and explain I was really fine. I was all right. I just received a scar, maybe more on the inside than the outside, as a reminder of this event. My life was saved, by the grace of God, in that moment of curiosity that made me look up instead of jump down.

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A close call

During the two years of the war I lived there, there were no grenades that fell in the U-shaped park area between ours and the two buildings on either side. One week in the summer of 1995, the shooting was particularly bad, we couldn't leave home for several days, and were getting house sick. I needed to take a brake from studying and asked mom to go with me for a short stroll in the 'park' outside. The park is made out of small gardens, each surrounded by a two feet metal or plastic sheet fence.

We only made it about half way when, in a split of a second, we first saw a huge light mass in the corner of our vision traveling toward the building in front of us. The shiny ball landed with a roll of thunder about 50-100 yards in front and to the right of us. As soon as our brains could process the information, we fell to the ground trying to protect us from the damage we realized was going to come from this explosion. But, we could not think quite rationally that quickly and we squatted down by the fence on the left side, instead of the right. As we tried to make ourselves as small as possible we saw a rain of shrapnels come our way from the right, clanking against the metal sheets all around us. This lasted for a couple of seconds. Not a single one has hit either of us!

After a few seconds, deafened by the extreme noise, and still in the fetal position, we yelled at each other to confirm we are both all right. Then, we run as fast as we could toward our building. As soon as we made it inside, two other grenades fell in the park area. That afternoon was the first and only time I felt I needed to hide in the basement with other neighbors.

After that day, no more large artillery hit the area between those three buildings.

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School in the war-zone

I attended electrical engineering college that was downtown. The classes were held unless it was a "really bad shooting" day; a term that was so relative. The professors didn't take the attendance, but since we didn't have the real books, their lectures were the only material we had. Plus, there was nothing else to do at home, no entertainment, unless we were creative to make up something. So, I studied and went to school whenever possible.

The college was in exile as our old building was now on the Serb territory. We held classes in what used to be partly kindergarten partly economics college building. The rooms didn't have any glass on the windows, which took the entire wall on one side. There were only heavy clear plastic sheets on the openings, many of which had holes too. At least we had enough sun light, because we usually didn't have electricity. Winters were rough, with our entire gear on, including the gloves. The only way to warm up was to run hot water down our fingers during breaks, which was heated on natural gas. There were times when it was so cold in the classrooms that our calculators would not work.

Somehow, I can't remember walking all the way to school more than just a few times. Even when I first came back to Sarajevo, the tram was operating part of the day. It was about 45 minutes walk to the closest tram station, which was the beginning of the line so there was no problem getting in. The carts would get full very quickly and it was sometimes hard to board after the first few stations. The trams would stop operating when it was too dangerous, and I usually didn't go to school on those days. I also hitchhiked a lot, which was common in my neighborhood, and rode in all kinds of trucks, large and small.

Sometimes it would happen that the fighting was really bad in one part of the city, and all quiet in the other, but we didn't have a way of knowing because there was no electricity to hear the news. On one occasion I made my way downtown only to find out that only I and my professor, who also lived in my part of the city, made it to class. All other students from downtown, who were aware of the magnitude of artillery in the area that day, did not show up. So, as not to waste the day, the professor lectured just me there for 5 hours straight. He figured we don't need to take breaks since there were no other students to talk to.
With only plastic on the windows, we were able to hear shooting outside loud and clear. The professor would stop for a second to acknowledge that a particular grenade was probably coming from a certain area, and then moments later to offer his guess where it has landed. The end to that class day could not come any sooner.
When we stepped outside the building, I realized it was too dangerous to try to make my way all the way home to the other side of the city. I decided to try to make it to my godmother's house, an hour walk away on the hill on the opposite side of the river. I remember running and praying like never before up that steep hill, keenly aware of how exposed my back was to the snipers on the hill on the other side of the river. This time, again, I made it safe.

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Life under fire

It is a fact that doesn't need stating that Sarajevo was under almost daily gun fire during the war. We all lived with the fact that when we go outside we can get shot. But the war lasted 4 years, and we of course couldn't be inside for that long, so many people, some 10,000 civilians, got killed in Sarajevo. That number is higher than the number of Bosnian soldiers killed in the city.

It also may be obvious, but I must clarify here, that we mostly walked, actually run, wherever we needed to go. Despite the lack of food, we were in good physical shape because of all the running. There was no public transportation, there was no gas for personal vehicles, and anyway most of them were destroyed by artillery. So, people were a relatively slow moving target for a distant sniper, and grenades an effective 'solution' for large gatherings.

The geographical position and the siege of Sarajevo allowed civilians to be such an easy target. Sarajevo lies in a valley and is surrounded by several hills and mountains. The Serb army was stationed on the elevated positions on the three sides of the city, and on the 4th, west, side is the airport, thankfully controlled by the international forces after the first few months of the war. West of the airport was the territory and the only mountain, Igman controlled by the Bosnian army. The windy road up this mountain was under frequent fire and few, very brave drivers dared to ride it. They would usually go at night, but their car lights would give them away. Our parish priest, fra. Mirko, made numerous trips on this, the only road leading into the city, bringing supplies to all the people of Sarajevo. My godmother went with him a couple of times, and told me he always requested she led the prayer of absolution, the long version, she would say. He received honors from the city for all the selfless, generous, and unbiased help that he brought.

We kind of new when it was a bad day to go out because of the shooting. It was obvious, we didn't need the news. Some areas were more dangerous than others. In the early months, several intersections were marked with signs like these "Attention, Sniper". Many streets were not passable, and we took the back roads. There was pretty much only one route to go from our side of the city to the center, 6-7 miles which took about 3 hours. We had to maneuver through some trenches, go behind the buildings whenever possible, and always run on the intersections. Even after the war we had an instinct to cross the streets very quickly.

Because we knew the guns were up the hills, on most smaller streets facing the hills people draped large pieces of fabrics hanging between the buildings on each side of the street. On large intersections huge steel cargo containers or damaged cars were lined up and stacked up. Amazingly, snipers sometimes were able to find the victims even through the small spaces between the two containers.

Our eight story building was 'safe' for most of the war. We lived on the third story, but we still had few bullet holes in the walls, and most windows blown out from grenades that fell on the top of the building. The last two floors were all destroyed. We had a sniper once trying to hit my mom and brother on the balcony as they were setting up the stove. That sniper was "working" that area only shortly, and after a couple of weeks we were able to live in that side of the apartment again. There was only one occasion when we were scared enough that we had to run down to the basement. Some city residents, on the other hand, spend many of their days under the ground.

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The Sarajevo Zoo

When thinking of the war time in Sarajevo, one may not consider that there were more than humans affected by it. The siege of Sarajevo devastated the Sarajevo zoo. It was on the front line and most of its animals either starved to death or fell victim to artillery or even sniper fire. The last animal, a female black bear, died at the end of 1992.

This was all happening before I returned to Sarajevo, so I don't remember all the details, except hearing from my mom's letters that almost all the animals have died. I found that this sad story was reported by The New York Times and here is just a part of it:
"The scene in the animal house is wrenching. A putrid odor pervades the concrete building, and cage after cage is littered with the carcasses of lions, tigers, leopards and pumas. From the skeletal remains of some and the whole carcasses of others, it is clear that some died sooner than others, and that their surviving mates fed on the bodies before they, too, succumbed to hunger."

The zoo reopened in 1997 after the area had been cleared of landmines and unexploded mortar shells. Unfortunately, it is facing another crisis as the city cannot afford to look after animals donated by zoos across Europe.

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