When I started to work in school as a teacher I was told that there is only way to find out am I good in this job. "If your students leave your class feeling and thinking differently, you achieved your goal", a school psychologist ( an expert for an active learning) told me.
Well, I have been several times in Sarajevo, but this time I came back home totaly changed. Different. Something happened to me. Centropa is obviously extremely good in its work.
I discovered synagogue and an old Ortodox church in Sarajevo.I knew that Jews lived in the Balkans and that their communities vanished in the Holocaust, but I knew nothing more about Sephardic Jews. I grew up in Sanski Most and I was so surprised when I read a biography of Rahela Perisic. Nobody from my family knew that there was a synagogue in Sanski Most, neither do I. So, I learned that as well.
The visits to the cemeteries reminded me that they are important historical sources where you can reconstruct a huge piece of history of the certain place. Bosko and Admira's story. Kurt Shork's destiny. Isak Samokovlija's grave (the writer whose stories I loved to read in the primary school).
I undestood what is the perception of my country in the eyes and words of kind and open-hearted people from abroad. That is so precious to me. I felt privileged to meet and spend a few days with so many brilliant intellectuals.
Tim Butcher wrote a great book about Gavrilo Princip. I am so glad that we heard an author which consulted historical sources while he was putting Gavrilo on the road again. It could be the best book written about Princip so far.
I visited Tunnel Museum. The Bosnian war of 1990s in that tunnel rose from the “Pandora’s box” and confronted me. Once again.
I was 16 when it started. It took a huge part of me and destroyed 10 years of my life. My entire youth.
In the 2002. I grabbed the first opportunity to leave this haunted country and I left to UK. I decided to bury all memories of the war and to heal myself. I didn’t have a control over anything in my life, I lost the house, I had to move from my hometown in front of shells and bullets, my father got ill in the middle of war and died, my aunt’s son was killed.
I went to UK to forget all of this and to remind myself how it is like to live “normally”. “Restitutio ad integrum”, the old wise Latin would say. Return to the normal condition.
I was fed up with war news, with the tears, cold, victims, suffering, poverty, depression. I wanted to learn again how to laugh, how to trust other people, how to be optimistic, how to have fun, how to be happy. Since I wasn’t able to go shopping during the period of 10 years I needed ten months to figure out which dress I like. I had to learn even how to do shopping.
Who am I, Who was I before the war started, What kind of person I want to be now and What am I going to do in the future?
Is there anything I can learn from this experience? How can I use it in the future?
Once, when I return home, which is not Sanski Most anymore, what kind of person I am going to be? My home is Banjaluka now, where I created my own small universe. My one world where can I be save and happy.
These questions were on my mind constantly. In order to heal myself I had to leave the Bosnian war behind my back. And I did. It remained there until I started to read “The Lazarus project” a few weeks ago. Honestly, I have never thought about it, I have never talked about it for the last 12 years.
So, It was not pleasant to meet these memories again in the tunnel, to see horrible scenes of war, but now I am strong enough to deal with it. I feel sorry for every victim of the war in Sarajevo and I am angry with the people who shelled Sarajevo. Of course, I am.
But, the words our host said in the Tunnel museum surprised me. They were full of anger, bitterness, hatred, accusation…Even If didn’t say the a word in the Tunnel museum all of us would feel and think the same. Feel sorry for the besieged city and angry for those who shelled it.
I think a lot about that men and the origin of his hate-speech. What happened to him in the past? Why didn’t he heal his wounds like I did mine? How old was he when the war started? What is his story? What does he want to achieve with it?
We all met Denis Karalic and we know for sure that this boy went through the hell. Yet, he is not angry or bitter. He is simply kind to everybody, such a nice person. Have you ever met an angry and bitter a Holocaust survivor? The one who blames all Germans for the bed things happened to him and his family? Have you ever met a Jasenovac survivor who are angry with all Croats? No. They would talk about Nazi, SS or Ustasha’s who commited crimes or even use their names.
The real issue in the post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina is:”How to talk about the war in 1990s without bias?”
Was our host in the Tunnel Museum biased?
Later that day I was thinking about 15 Serbian families (who are my friends) which left Sarajevo in the beginning of 1990s. All of them have a horrible stories about the pressure, violence, treats, torture and other things they faced in Sarajevo. They have lived in Sarajevo for centuries or decades and they suddenly had to live their homes. Before the siege of Sarajevo started. Nobody mentioned them. Do they have right to tell their story?
Or perhaps, their stories are biased?
What about my story? Who was shooting at me and my family? I never talked about it, but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. Should I talk about that more often? How to talk about it?
Am I biased? It takes a lot of effort to talk objectively about the war If you experienced it personally.
What is the true? How to recognize it?
"To consult historical sources", I would dare to say.
Whose story is the real one?
Do you know the correct answers to these questions? Are you sure that you are not biased?
It is natural to have these doubts in a such complicated country and it is good to work on these questions. Task of educators is to work on thesee issues.
Also, it is great to discuss it openly without hard feelings and to like a lot people with whom perhaps you don’t totally agree with.
That happened in Sarajevo this July and I am really grateful for the CSA experience.