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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The tunnel

There were no stores in Sarajevo during the war. The food on the few street black markets came from outside of the city. Since we were under siege, there were no roads in and out of the city, except during short periods of peace agreements.

In the first couple of war years, volunteers working in eight-hour shifts dug out a tunnel underneath the airport runway, which led to a little town Hrasnica, on the "free" territory controlled by the Bosnian army. The tunnel was mainly for the soldiers, but every now and then they would allow civilians to pass through. Even when the civilians were allowed, if an army group or some politicians happen to come to the tunnel at that moment, all civilian traffic was halted, sometimes for hours. Some paid big money to go through the tunnel, either to evacuate from the city or to bring large quantities of food to sell on the markets. Others, like us, just wanted to buy for themselves some food that was 5 times more expensive on the black markets in Sarajevo. The tunnel was just about 5 ft high and had rails on the ground, for mine-like carts, that transported everything from weapons, people, to food.

The tunnel was built in my neighbourhood of forty thousand, Dobrinja. Since it was at the edge of city line next to the airport and surrounded on three sides by Serb army, it was also one of the most dangerous regions in the city. The area around the tunnel was long emptied of all residents, because in the first days of the war the national army took hold of the airport and positioned their tanks and artillery there. There were also massive slaughters of people in their homes close to the airport, which contributed to this area quickly becoming a military only zone. Between all the buildings were trenches, and that was the only way to get close to the tunnel. The entrance to the tunnel was through the basement of a house belonging to the Kolar family. Part of the house is now a museum. The basement holds army uniforms, shell casings, and empty sacks of humanitarian aid. Today, only 20 metres of the tunnel survive - the rest has collapsed.

The tunnel ran for approximately 870 yards in length. That distance from above the ground looks so short, but it could take hours to go through the tunnel.
This picture was taken at the entrance on the other side, and in the distance, on the other side of the runway, is where we used to live. One day, I think in late 1995, my mom, her friend and I decided to try to go through the tunnel and get some food in Hrasnica.

It was close to impossible to obtain a civilian permit to legally enter the tunnel; you either had to have strong connections with military/police who controlled the entrance, or pay hundreds of dollars equivalent money to get the papers. So, we talked to people who had done it before, and got directions through the neighbourhood and the tranches to the side entrance to the main trench leading into the Kolar house. It was just 20 min walk from where we lived, but quite dangerous once we went passed inhabited buildings. Being on the first line of defense, this area was often covered with land mines. We were told which buildings to go through; they all had holes in the concrete walls through the entire length of the building, so that people can run through the building instead of outside and be out of site from the snipers. Then we had to maneuver through a maze of certain trenches, jump out by the garbage mini-hill, jump into the trenches again, turn right when we see a cow (!)...and when we finally reached the final leg of the trench leading toward the house, we had to wait for a good moment when the guards were not looking so that we can jump into the line with other "legal" people. The official entrance where the guards check the papers was before this point in the line, so the guards were not so vigilant for anyone sneaking in through other trenches - only those crazy folks like us would attempt something like that. We were very lucky to have made it safe, and weren't ratted out for cutting in the line.

We quickly made it into the house,down the stairs into the basement and were in the dark tunnel. The guards controlling the traffic through the tunnel would only allow flow in one direction, because the tunnel was very narrow. People on the other side would have to wait until everyone from the opposite side would come out. There was very little light in the tunnel and we had to just move with the flow. It had steel support beams, and because the ceiling was so low, many people hit their heads, so many beams had blood on them. We tried to keep our heads low, and watch where we step. People coming back would had dropped their load, probably when bumping their head, so there were potatoes, smashed eggs and similar obstacles between the rails that we had to watch for. When we finally reached the other side, I remember a sigh of relief, not only to be outside of claustrophobic tunnel, but also a sense of freedom that this town had.

We made our purchases, our eyes wide open in awe of all the food available. The money we had was from my mom's quasi salary, that was sometimes made in cigarettes, which we traded on the black markets, as well as other non-perishable food collected from other sources. Our main items on the list were eggs, fresh produce and meat, all rarely seen in our diet those days, as well as other things such as cooking oil, spices, sweets, and coffee. We loaded probably 50 pounds each, huge backpacks so heavy that I was bent over the entire time - it helped not to hit the steel beams on the way back. :) When we lined up at the tunnel entrance in Hrasnica, we had to wait few hours because military battalion had arrived and they had the right of way. I remember degradation as all of us waiting there were treated as some lower class by police patrolling the entrance. All they would tell us is that tunnel was currently closed to civilians and we all had to just wait. It was getting dark, we were already tired, and we still had to make the hardest part of the trip and carry all that food through the tunnel. When we finally made it in, I felt like a mule under all that pressure, just following the person in front of me, trying to keep my head low and not to fall down. We made it home safely, and my brother was very happy to see us alive, safe, and to dig in into all that yummy food.

We never considered going through the tunnel again.

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The UN lunch packets

Since we lived very close to the first line of defense, there were many UN tanks positioned on the streets close to the border. The UN vehicle that was a bit further in between the buildings often had kids around it wanting to talk to the soldiers, practice their English and maybe get some handouts. At one point, it became known that the UN soldiers are trading the old Yugoslavian paper money for lunch packets. Since there was a huge inflation right before the war, we had many paper bills with 6 and 9 zeros and these were apparently interesting to those man. I decided to be more proactive and target those soldiers at the front lines. So, few times I went with a handful of old paper bills, money that were totally useless at that point, to the UN peace keepers stationed in the ground floor apartments in the building on the front line. That area was clear of any civilians, actually several buildings around it were totally empty, and some wired with step-grenades. There were also no Bosnian military or police allowed in the zone. So, mom went with me to the corner of the building, and then I made my way to this apartment, entering from the balcony with no fence. And, those few times I was nicely greeted by both man and woman in uniform there, who gave me few very delicious lunch packets that they received in their regular supply. My adventures didn't last too long. On one occasion, as mom and I were returning from the front line zone, a Bosnian policeman stopped us and threatened us that we will go to jail if we ever go there again. So we stopped going. But, the packages were so special. They had things like canned cheese and fuel cubes, both of which we couldn't find anywhere else. In hindsight, I am thankful for those treats but also that I was stopped before I got into some series trouble. That front line was no place for a twenty year old girl!

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Hunting for food

There were very few things that we had any control of during those times. And as unusual as it may seem, there were not many things we can occupy our minds with. The life was dulled down to bare existence. The goal of each day was to survive just that day, in the best way we could. The main concern on our minds every single morning was what we are going to eat that day.

Since we were not able to secure a garden in the park area for us, we decided to go steal the vegetables from other people. Of course it would be too visible to try to do it in front of our building, so mom and I ventured on a nearby hill that had several gardens. The top of the hill had the most vegetables, but was also the most dangerous, because being up high we were exposed to snipers who were always looking for victims. We would hid between the berry bushes, and duck for cover when hearing the gun shots. Few areas had trenches used by Bosnian army at some point, so we also used those for cover when we could. The gardens had all sorts of vegetables, and we had to gather them fast, laying close to the ground. I became very proficient at digging out the carrots and potatoes in one piece, and mom would gather cabbage and other above the ground veggies. The only tool we had were kitchen utensils. The last time we went up there we were forced to rush, either by guns or owners chasing us, so much so that we left our special knife up there, and that was the end of our theft adventures.

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Humanitarian aid

To people who have not experienced it, the term "humanitarian aid" probably brings thoughts of hope. For me, those years in war left a bad taste in my mouth when thinking of humanitarian aid.

The most common items we have received through the regular humanitarian aid were flour, beans, rice, pasta (often with no eggs), lentils or peas, "kabash" soap - huge yellow smelly brick. Even now thinking back on these, I get that sense again of being disgusted with rice and beans. They were so often in our diet, that for years after the war I couldn't think of eating them again. Mind you that we didn't have spices or sauces to go with these, so plain boiled food was very tasteless. Fortunately we found few other sources for more nutritious food.

The Caritas humanitarian aid was not regular. They mainly distributed donations to those registered in a Catholic parish, and since there were not many of those in the city, the convoys were often routed to other, less dangerous territories. But we really looked forward to those distributions. They had items that I get excited thinking about even now. Things like jams, chocolate, cookies, sauces, canned meat, vegetable shortening, vitamins, cocoa, soups, milk powder, egg powder, instant mashed potatoes... All of these were rare, and in very small quantities, but for us at that time those were so precious and something we talked about for days.
Through Caritas we received help in more than just food. One or two times they have even distributed chopped wood, a cubic meter per household!

We were called, maybe a dozen times, for clothing and shoes distribution in Caritas. Many times someone from the church would first call those registered members to pick through the available items before opening it up to everyone in the community. Those were mainly second-hand items, with or without holes, barely clean, stuffed in huge boxes. As much as we needed clothing, especially my brother who was growing fast those years, I didn't enjoy being part of the crowd who elbowed through the piles of clothes, grabbing more than they can carry. I actually still have a pair of boots and have just a few months ago given away the last clothing item I got through them.

Some ten years after the war, the church choir I was in was replacing their old choir robes. Since they didn't know where to get rid of them, I asked if we could send it back to my choir in Sarajevo. Everyone was supposed to wash and fold their two layered robes and put them in boxes we prepared. When after the rehearsal I saw those boxes just piled up with tossed fabric, some still covered with B.O., it reminded me of the boxes of cloths we went through in Caritas. I stayed and re-folded every single robe, in an effort to make the gift more presentable to those opening it.

Handful of times through Caritas, the "children", the term that was used loosely, have also gotten packages that were supposed to be from other children in other parts of the world. I think this might have been part of "Christmas boxes" operation. It was an exciting event because the boxes were all nicely wrapped, it was a present, and not just a rationed distribution. The packages were all the same size, so we would just pick one, having no idea what was in them. Most of the boxes had a message from the child that put it together, but these were the "real" children, sometimes pre-school age, so messages only had a few words. The items were also interesting. One time I got a box that had a card, couple of gloves of garlic and one slipper!

Merhamet (Muslim) and Dobrotvor (Serb) organizations were also distributing packages to those who had background eligibility to receive aid from them, which my family had both, but we only received help from these organizations a handful of times.

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